Results from an international study of clinicians have revealed that doctors experiencing burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents.
The findings, published on September 14th in The BMJ, also showed that physicians with burnout were up to four times more likely to be dissatisfied with their job and more than three times as likely to have thoughts about leaving their job, or to regret their career choice.
Previous studies have highlighted concerns that burnout – defined as emotional exhaustion, cynicism and detachment from the job, and a feeling of reduced personal accomplishment – is reaching epidemic levels among physicians.
Professor Matthias Weigl, from the German Institute for Patient Safety at Bonn University, warned that spare capacity in the field of medicine was nearing crisis point.
“In the UK, a third of trainee doctors report that they experience burnout to a high or very high degree, while in the US, four in 10 physicians report at least one symptom of burnout,” Professor Weigl said.
“And in a recent review of low- and middle-income countries the overall single-point prevalence of burnout ranged from 2.5% to 87.9% among 43 studies. Yet there was a lack of evidence about the association of burnout with how engaged a physician is with their job and how that potentially impacts on the quality of patient care.”
The team of researchers analysed the results of 170 observational studies on the subject involving 239,246 physicians and discovered that burnout was associated with significantly lower productivity.
Equally worrying was the finding that physicians with burnout were twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents and show low professionalism, and over twice as likely to receive low satisfaction ratings from patients.
The analysis also found that burnout and poorer job satisfaction was greatest in hospital settings, physicians aged 31-50 years, and those working in emergency medicine and intensive care, while burnout was lowest in general practitioners.
The association between burnout and patient safety incidents was greatest in physicians aged 20-30 years, and people working in emergency medicine.
“The pervasive nature of physician burnout indicates a defective work system caused by deep societal problems and structural problems across the sector,” Professor Weigl warned.
“Urgent action is imperative for the safety of physicians, patients, and health systems, including interventions that are evidence based and system oriented, to design working environments that promote staff engagement and prevent burnout.
“Moving forward, investment strategies to monitor and improve physician burnout are needed as a means of retaining the healthcare workforce and improving the quality of patient care.
“Healthcare organisations should invest more time and effort in implementing evidence-based strategies to mitigate physician burnout across specialties, and particularly in emergency medicine and for physicians in training or residency.”