Perceived Stress, Burnout Levels and Healthy Behaviors of Family Medicine Residents: The Impact of a Psychoeducational Program

Abstract

Aim:The aim of this study is to implement a structured stress management program to the family medicine residents and to evaluate the impact of this upon the residents' perceived stress, level of burnout, health behaviors and problem solving skills. Methods: The sample of the study which was planned as selfcontrolled experimental design constituted the family medicine residents majoring in family medicine (n=26) at our faculty, at the time when the study was conducted. Residents were given psycho education, related to stress management and social problem solving, one hour per week for eight weeks. They completed the following scales at the beginning, at the end of the educational program (month two) and the follow-up period (month 6): Perceived Stress Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment), Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Scale-II (nutrition, physical activity, stress management, interpersonal relationships, spirituality, healthy responsibility) and Social Problem Solving Inventory (orientation, resolution, total). Besides, a questionnaire which was developed by us and which evaluated the training was performed when the training ended. Results: Of the participants 65.4% were female. The mean age was 29.8 ± 3.0 years. There were significant changes in all mean scores (p<0.05) after educational program, except for the perceived stress, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization score. At month six, it was observed that the significant differences of changes were continued for nutrition, stress management, interpersonal relationships, spirituality, orientation, healthy lifestyle behaviors total and social problem solving inventory total scores. The participants found the educational program useful (4.5±0.5 over 5.00), and stated that it should be more frequent and longer and should be in the Specialization Training Curriculum (4.8±0.3). Conclusion: A psycho educational program on stress management was observed to influence the burnout levels, health behaviors and social problem solving skills of the family medicine residents positively and this effect continued in sixth month.