Exhaustion and Burnout in Healthcare is Common among Physicians and Other Professionals

Most of the studies looking at job satisfaction and burnout in the healthcare industry are focused on physicians only. However, the latest findings as published in the JAMA Network Open examined such feelings, as well as others, among nonphysician workers in the healthcare industry too, such as nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists.

The lead author of the paper, Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD, Mayo Clinic Program on Physician Well-being, together with colleagues, wrote, “Burnout and professional dissatisfaction may place extra strain on modern healthcare system while catering to the rising demands for health care and medical assistance in the event of a shortage of workforce.”

The team further added, “Previous studies were all cross-sectional, involving physicians, advanced clinicians in practice, and nurses, clearly demonstrated their association of satisfaction and burnout with the intent of reducing work hours and even leaving the present job.”

The authors of the study examined all the survey responses from over 26,000 nonphysician health workers who answered a questionnaire in October 2015 and 2017 respectively. The participants were also working at a facility of Mayo Clinic. Whereas 77.1% of them were females, 27.8% were in the age group of 45 to 54.

Healthcare workers involved in this study were mainly healthcare professionals like nurses, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, social workers, paramedics, administrative office workers, clinical office workers, business professionals, technologists, and technicians.

All-inclusive, the baselines rates were 21.9% for emotional exhaustion, 9.2% for high depersonalization, and 23.8% for burnout.

After controlling these factors, the team also discovered that complete burnout, baseline higher emotional exhaustion, and baseline higher depersonalization were associated with a reduced effort at work over two years. One such similar trend was also observed in nonphysician health workers unsatisfied with the organization.

“Employers should prepare for a substantial cost, as benefits and costs remain the same or rise whereas revenue generation for employees reduced,” according to authors.

Finally, the team concluded expressing the need for adequate research into how it would be possible to improve work environments such that nonphysician health workers are happier with reduced burnout.

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