Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Research on Healthcare Performance (RESHAPE), Inserm U1290
Titre de la thèse : The concept of ‘well-being’ in the context of public health challenges: an epistemological analysis and justification for a conceptual refocusing. Focus on the relationship between pediatric intensive care healthcare workers’ burnout, parental stress and anxiety, and their consequences on the quality of care provided to the child.
Année d'inscription : 2022
Co-directeurs : Vincent Piriou et Marc Lilot
Originally, my doctoral project aimed to investigate, through a longitudinal design, the relationship between healthcare workers’ distress, parental distress, and quality of care in pediatric cardiac intensive care. The initial protocol included implementing “well-being” interventions for healthcare workers, while simultaneously monitoring the evolution of parental distress and care quality, with the objective of providing direct empirical evidence of this link.
The impossibility of carrying out this interventional component led to a reorientation of the project. The thesis was therefore structured around two complementary axes:
1. A clinical axis, dedicated to the empirical analysis of the determinants of parental anxiety in pediatric cardiac intensive care, as well as to drawing from the literature the observable associations between parental distress, healthcare worker distress, and quality of care in this setting, with the aim of identifying actionable levers and effective interventions.
2. An epistemological axis, arising both from the reflection triggered by the widespread and often imprecise use of the term “well-being” in scientific literature and institutional practices, and from a personal questioning of my own scientific posture. This axis seeks to deconstruct the concept, trace its foundations and uses, and assess its compatibility with the requirements of public health, ultimately advocating for a conceptual refocusing on “distress” and its more operationalizable clinical manifestations (stress, anxiety, burnout).
This dual approach, empirical and theoretical, makes it possible to articulate the clinical understanding of the determinants of distress with a critical analysis of its conceptual foundations, thereby informing both research and public health interventions.
Sacha Mairet-Mabboux is a PhD candidate in Public Health at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, within the Inserm U1290 Reshape research unit. He graduated in 2022 with a Master’s degree in Integrative Biology and Physiology, before pursuing a doctorate in Public Health, driven by his interest in multidisciplinary approaches bridging biological sciences, social sciences, and philosophy. That same year, he was awarded a public doctoral fellowship from the École Doctorale Interdisciplinaire Sciences-Santé (EDISS) through a competitive selection process.
His dissertation focuses on the study of distress in pediatric cardiac intensive care, structured around two complementary axes. The first, clinical, aims to identify the determinants of parental anxiety and to analyze their associations with healthcare workers’ distress and quality of care, within the framework of the PARANX project. The second, epistemological, critically examines the widespread and often imprecise use of the concept of “well-being” in public health, and advocates for a conceptual refocusing on distress and its more operationalizable clinical forms (stress, anxiety, burnout).
His work, positioned at the interface between clinical research and conceptual analysis, has led to several scientific communications and ongoing publications.
