A Model of Burnout Among Healthcare Professionals

• Published in: Journal of general internal medicine : JGIM Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 373 - 376
• Main Authors: Jackson, Jeffrey L., Kuriyama, Akira, Muramatsu, Kumiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.02.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anxiety; Anxiety - epidemiology; Burnout; Burnout, Professional - epidemiology; Burnout, Psychological; COVID-19; Delivery of Health Care; Factor analysis; Fear; Health care; Health Personnel; Hospitals; Humans; Intensive care units; Internal Medicine; Medical personnel; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental depression; Original Research; Pandemics; Resilience; Surveys; Teamwork; Working conditions
• ISSN: 0884-8734; 1525-1497
• DOI: 10.1007/s11606-023-08514-8

Background Burnout is common and can lead to worse outcomes for both healthcare workers and patients. Our study purpose was to assess the structural relationship among factors that protect against or worsen burnout. Data Sources and Study Setting We surveyed healthcare professionals in 15 different Japanese intensive care units during the 3rd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2021). Surveys assessed burnout (Mini Z 2.0), resilience (Brief Resilience Scale), depressive (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) symptoms, job and work environment characteristics, and personal experience with COVID. We explored survey domains with principal component factor analysis and modeled our results using structural equation modeling. Principal Findings Among 936 ICU professionals, 24.3% met criteria for burnout. Our model suggested that resilience ( β  =  − 0.26, 95% CI − 0.32 to − 0.20), teamwork ( β  =  − 0.23, 95% CI − 0.30 to − 0.16), and feeling safe ( β  =  − 0.11, 95% CI − 0.18 to − 0.04) reduced burnout. Depression ( β  =  − 0.32, 95% CI − 0.41 to − 0.23) and anxiety ( β  =  − 0.20, 95% CI − 0.29 to − 0.10) both decreased resilience as did COVID fear ( β  = 0.08, 95% CI − 0.14 to − 0.02). In addition to directly reducing resilience, anxiety also indirectly reduced resilience by increasing COVID fear (0.23, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.23), which decreased resilience ( β  − 0.08, 95% CI − 0.14 to − 0.02). Conclusions Burnout is common among Japanese ICU professionals. Resilience, teamwork, and safety are all correlated with reduced burnout. Those who had depression or anxiety or COVID fear had higher degrees of burnout, an effect that appears to be mediated by reduced resilience. These are potential targets for interventions to reduce burnout.