Comparison of the burnout among medical residents before and during the pandemic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2022.111118Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Measured burnout levels of residents in 3 hospitals 1 year after the pandemic.

  • Compared with levels in the same hospitals 3 months before the pandemic.

  • No significant difference in burnout subscale scores is observed between studies.

  • But having vulnerable cohabitants and outpatient COVID-19 duty are risk factors.

  • It's higher in females, surgical specialties, senior residents, who have more shifts.

Abstract

Objective

This study aims to compare the level of burnout syndrome in medical residents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify potential risk factors.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted on medical residents from three different university hospitals in Turkey in March 2021, one year after the pandemic hit Turkey. Burnout is measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory which assesses three dimensions of it: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Collected data were combined and compared with data from a previous study which was held in the same hospitals in December 2019, three months before the pandemic.

Results

412 medical residents from three universities participated. The mean age was 27.8 ± 2.4 and half of them were female. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, no significant differences in emotional exhaustion (pre:19.0 ± 7.6 post:18.8 ± 7.8), depersonalization (pre:7.3 ± 4.3 post:7.2 ± 4.4), and personal accomplishment (pre:20.8 ± 5.1 post:21.1 ± 5) scores were observed one year after pandemic. Adjusting for confounders, multiple linear regression models indicated that who are female, are in surgical specialty, have vulnerable cohabitant, and have more night shifts faces higher emotional exhaustion. Depersonalisation is higher among who spent more years in residency, have more night shifts, or COVID-19 outpatient duty. Females and those who have vulnerable cohabitant has lower levels of Personal Achievement.

Conclusion

This study does not support the hypothesis that pandemic increases the burnout levels. Yet it identifies a couple of pandemic related factors that are associated with burnout and confirming the association of several previously known factors.

Keywords

Burnout
COVID-19
Mental health
Resident physician

Data availability

Data used in this study is available on request from the corresponding author.

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