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Cited by 101Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnoutCOVID-19 and Mental HealthOccupational Health and Burnout

Frontline physician burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: national survey findings

Open access
Melnikow, Joy, Padovani, Andrew, Miller, Marykate·2022·BMC Health Services Research
DOI 10.1186/s12913-022-07728-6PMC PMC8933125

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Abstract

Background: Physician burnout and wellbeing are an ongoing concern. Limited research has reported on the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on burnout over time among U.S. physicians. Methods: We surveyed U.S. frontline physicians at two time points (wave one in May–June 2020 and wave two in Dec 2020-Jan 2021) using a validated burnout measure. The survey was emailed to a national stratified random sample of family physicians, internists, hospitalists, intensivists, emergency medicine physicians, and infectious disease physicians. Burnout was assessed with the Professional Fulfillment Index Burnout Composite scale (PFI-BC). Responses were weighted to account for sample design and non-response bias. Random effects and quantile regression analyses were used to estimate change in conditional mean and median PFI-BC scores, adjusting for physician, geographic, and pandemic covariates. Results: In the random effects regression, conditional mean burnout scores increased in the second wave among all respondents (difference 0.15 (CI: 0.24, 0.57)) and among respondents to both waves (balanced panel) (difference 0.21 (CI: − 0.42, 0.84)). Conditional burnout scores increased in wave 2 among all specialties except for Emergency medicine, with the largest increases among Hospitalists, 0.28 points (CI: − 0.19,0.76) among all respondents and 0.36 (CI: − 0.39,1.11) in the balanced panel, and primary care physicians, 0.21 (CI: − 0.23,0.66) among all respondents and 0.31 (CI: − 0.38,1.00) in the balanced panel. The conditional mean PFI-BC score among hospitalists increased from 1.10 (CI: 0.73,1.46) to 1.38 (CI: 1.02,1.74) in wave 2 in all respondents and from 1.49 (CI: 0.69,2.29) to 1.85 (CI: 1.24,2.46) in the balanced panel, near or above the 1.4 threshold indicating burnout. Findings from quantile regression were consistent with those from random effects. Conclusions: Rates of physician burnout during the first year of the pandemic increased over time among four of five frontline specialties, with greatest increases among hospitalist and primary care respondents. Our findings, while not statistically significant, were consistent with worsening burnout; both the random effects and quantile regressions produced similar point estimates. Impacts of the ongoing pandemic on physician burnout warrant further research.

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  • Individuals affected by burnout are at risk of poor physical and psychological health outcomes, including diminished well-being, depression, anxiety, and suicide.

    “Individuals affected by burnout are at risk of a range of associated outcomes that extend beyond the work context, including poor physical [6,12] and psychological health (including diminished well-being [13], depression [14,15], anxiety [16], and suicide [14,17]).”

    From Evaluation of an App-Delivered Psychological Flexibility Skill Training Intervention for Medical Student Burnout and Well-being: Randomized Controlled Trial (2023) · cites this paper as [13]

    The Background states that burnout among physicians is associated with decreased well-being. It does not link burnout to poor physical health, depression, anxiety, or suicide; its mentions of depression and anxiety concern healthcare workers during the pandemic, not outcomes of burnout. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [18]AMA Physician Masterfile. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/masterfile/ama-physician-masterfile. (accessed 17 Feb 2022).

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Authors
Melnikow, J., Padovani, A., & Miller, M.
Affiliations
University of California, Davis (US)
Corresponding author
Melnikow, Joy
ORCID
Venue
BMC Health Services Research
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2022-03-19
Volume
22
Issue
1
Pages
365-365
ISSN
1472-6963 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12913-022-07728-6
PMC
PMC8933125
OpenAlex
W4220912110
Cited by
101
References
28
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 11
FWCI
26.41
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Health Services Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
University of California, Davis
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
Keywords
physician burnout, COVID-19 pandemic, frontline physicians, hospitalists, primary care physicians, physician well-being, physician specialty, emergency physicians, intensivists, infectious disease physicians, internists, physician mental health, pandemic stressors
MeSH terms
COVID-19, Burnout, Professional, Humans, Surveys and Questionnaires, Hospitalists, Pandemics

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