Are burnout prevention programs for hospital physicians needed?

INTRODUCTION: Burnout, whether as a brief episode or more protracted, affects all aspects of a physician's life. Given the critical role of physicians in society, efforts to monitor, preserve, and enhance physician health are beneficial also to their patients. We investigated the patterns of burnout in physicians.

METHODOLOGY: Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), in the General Survey version, was handed out to interested physicians of a Canadian general hospital in a Grand Rounds lecture on "well-being of physicians." They were to complete the MBI on an anonymous basis. Fifty-five adequately completed questionnaires were received.

RESULTS: Our physicians obtained significantly higher (p<0.01) average score on Emotional Exhaustion subscale of MBI (14.0, SD=7.5) and on the Cynicism subscale of the MBI than average scores from combined 9 occupational samples listed in Maslach's manual: our physicians reported more intense emotional depletion and endorsed more items suggestive of cynicism. However, their average Professional Efficacy score (27.6, SD=6.3) did not significantly differ from Maslach's combined average for this subscale. The physicians' Professional Efficacy scores were not significantly related to those of Emotional Exhaustion and of Cynicism (Pearson coefficients, p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: This suggests that improving professional medical skills (and thus a sense of efficiency) alone cannot prevent physicians from burnout. An implementation of other preventive strategies such as those based on mindfulness or on cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is necessary.