High prevalence of burnout syndrome among medical and nonmedical residents during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, health professionals have been working under extreme conditions, increasing the risk of physical and mental illness. We evaluated the prevalence of burnout and its associated factors among postgraduate student residents in health professions during the global health crisis. Methods Healthcare residents were recruited from all across Brazil between July and September 2020 through digital forms containing instruments for assessing burnout (Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI)), resilience (brief resilient coping scale (BRCS)) and anxiety, stress and depression (depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS-21) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)). Additionally, the relationships between burnout and chronic diseases, autonomy and educational adequacy in the residency programme, personal protective equipment (PPE), workload and care for patients with COVID-19 were evaluated. The chi-square test, Student’s t test, Pearson’s correlation test and logistic regression were performed. Results A total of 1,313 participants were included: mean (standard deviation) age, 27.8 (4.4) years; female gender, 78.1%; white race, 59.3%; and physicians, 51.3%. The overall prevalence of burnout was 33.4%. The odds (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]) of burnout were higher in the presence of pre-existing diseases (1.76 [1.26–2.47]) and weekly work > 60 h (1.36 [1.03–1.79]) and were lower in the presence of high resilience (0.84 [0.81–0.88]), autonomy (0.87 [0.81–0.93]), and educational structure (0.77 [0.73–0.82]), adequate availability of PPE (0.72 [0.63–0.83]) and non-white race (0.63 [0.47–0.83]). Burnout was correlated with anxiety (r = 0.47; p < 0.05), stress (r: 0.58; p < 0.05) and depression (r: 0.65; p < 0.05). Conclusions We observed a high prevalence of burnout among residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual characteristics and conditions related to the work environment were associated with a higher or lower occurrence of the syndrome.

Resident Burnout, Wellness, Professional Development, and Engagement Before and After New Training Schedule Implementation

“…Additionally, recent studies have suggested that the association between response rates and nonresponse bias may be weaker than previously thought . Second, our postintervention cohorts spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have introduced additional confounding in ways that are difficult to ascertain . Due to pandemic-induced staffing needs and reduction in research and scholarly activities at our institutions, there were a variety of minor differences to our schedule during the 2 postintervention years.…”

Prevalence and correlators of burnout among health professionals during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

“…Systematic reviews reflected the increase in the prevalence of psychological distress, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among health professionals during the current pandemic ( 7 ). Several studies have investigated the prevalence of burnout and associated factors among HPs ( 9 – 12 ). A study reported that over one-third of the HPs experienced severe burnout symptoms during the early stage of the pandemic in China ( 13 ).…”