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Medical education and training
Research
Differences in burnout prevalence between clinical professionals and biomedical scientists in an academic medical centre: a cross-sectional survey
  1. Erick Messias1,
  2. Molly M Gathright1,
  3. Emily S Freeman2,
  4. Victoria Flynn1,
  5. Timothy Atkinson3,
  6. Carol R Thrush4,
  7. James A Clardy1,
  8. Purushottam Thapa1
  1. 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
  2. 2 Faculty Centre, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
  3. 3 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
  4. 4 Department of Surgery, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
  1. Correspondence to Erick Messias; elmessias{at}uams.edu

Abstract

Objective To determine the prevalence and associated factors for personal, work-related and patient/client-related burnout in clinical professionals and biomedical scientists in academic medicine.

Design Prevalence survey using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory.

Setting Mid-size academic health centre.

Participants Clinical providers (n=6489) and biomedical scientists (n=248) were invited to complete the survey. 1646 completed responses (response rate 24.4%) were analysed.

Primary and Secondary outcome measures Prevalence estimates and adjusted ORs (AOR) were stratified for gender, age and professional category.

Results Type of burnout varies across professional categories, with significant differences between clinicians and scientists. The prevalence of personal burnout was 52.7% (95%CI 50% to 55%), work-related burnout 47.5% (95%CI 45% to 49%) and patient/client-related burnout 20.3% (95%CI 18% to 22%). The prevalence of personal and work-related burnout was higher among women, while those aged 20–30 had a higher prevalence of all three burnout categories. Overall, clinical professionals had higher personal and work-related burnout, while biomedical scientists had higher client-related burnout. Accounting for the effects of gender and age, a significantly higher risk for personal burnout was found for physicians (AOR 1.64; 95%CI 1.3 to 2.1) and nurses (AOR 1.5; 95%CI 1.03 to 2.2). Significantly higher odds of work-related burnout were found for nurses (AOR 1.5; 95%CI 1.2 to 1.9) and residents (AOR 1.9; 95%CI 1.04 to 3.6). Basic scientists (AOR 10.0; 95%CI 5.7 to 17.6), physicians (AOR 2.8; 95%CI 1.9 to 4.1) and nurses (AOR 2.1; 95%CI 1.3 to 3.5) had higher odds of patient/client-related burnout.

Conclusions Types of burnout are unevenly distributed in academic medical centres. Physicians have higher risk of personal and patient/client-related burnout, residents have higher risk of work-related burnout, basic scientists are at higher risk of client-related burnout and nurses have higher odds of all three types of burnout. Interventions addressing the problem of burnout in clinical environments may be inadequate to support biomedical scientists.

  • burnout
  • professional wellbeing
  • prevalence
  • academic medicine
  • engagement

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023506

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors EM provided substantial contributions to the conception and design of the work, the acquisition of data for the work; the drafting of the work as well as revising it critically for important intellectual content; provided final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. MMG, ESF, VF, TA, CRT and JAC provided substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, the acquisition of data for the work; revising it critically for important intellectual content; provided final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. PT provided substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; revising it critically for important intellectual content; provided final approval of the version to be published; and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All authors gave final approval to the submitted paper.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval The UAMS Institutional Review Board classified this study as Exempt, category 2, on 30 November 2016, protocol number 205887.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement De-identified aggregate data are available upon request to the corresponding author.