Articles

Burnout Among Health Care Providers During COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

COVID-19, which quickly became a global problem, in addition to its effects on public health, is very important in terms of the effect on mental health and anxiety in health care providers. Job burnout should be considered during such health crises. The study design is a cross-sectional study. A total of 87 health care providers (nurses and physicians) were included in the study. Their general information such as age, gender, years of experience, and hours working in COVID-19 was asked. They all filled Maslach burnout inventory, a questionnaire measuring job burnout with three dimensions: Emotional exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA). We found that in physicians, EE (r:0.54, P<0.001) and DP were correlated with hours working in the COVID-19 ward, but no such correlation was found in nurses. Physicians had a higher DP score (mean 12.66 vs. 8.28, P<0.001) and lower PA score (mean 22.71 vs. 25.62, P:0.004) both of them represent higher burnout levels in physicians. Comparing our results with previous studies show that during the COVID-19 breakout higher level of job burnout could be found in health care workers, especially in physicians. Hours working in COVID-19 special wards can increase the level of burnout.

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation summary. (Accessed March 1, 2020, at https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/87026.)
2. Sasangohar F, Jones SL, Masud FN, Vahidy FS, Kash BA. Provider burnout and fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned from a high-volume intensive care unit. Anesth Analg 2020;131:106-11.
3. Wu Y, Wang J, Luo C, Hu S, Lin X, Anderson AE, et al. A comparison of burnout frequency among oncology physicians and nurses working on the front lines and usual wards during the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China. J Pain Symptom Manage 2020;60:e60-5.
4. Alharbi J, Jackson D, Usher K. The potential for COVID‐19 to contribute to compassion fatigue in critical care nurses. J Clin Nurs 2020;10:1111.
5. Freudenberger HJ. Staff burnout. J Soc Issues 1974;30:159-65.
6. Moalemi S, Kavoosi Z, Beygi N, Deghan A, Karimi A, Parvizi MM. Evaluation of the Persian Version of Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey among Iranian Nurses: Validity and Reliability. GMJ 2018;7:e995.
7. Maslach C, Jackson SE, Leiter MP, Schaufeli WB, Schwab RL. Maslach burnout inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting psychologists press, 1986.
8. Shah K, Chaudhari G, Kamrai D, Lail A, Patel RS. How Essential Is to Focus on Physician's Health and Burnout in Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic? Cureus 2020;12:e7538.
9. Channappanavar R, Lu L, Xia S, Du L, Meyerholz DK, Perlman S, et al. Protective effect of intranasal regimens containing peptidic Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus fusion inhibitor against MERS-CoV infection. J Infect Dis 2015;212:1894-903.
10. Berg S. At Stanford, physician burnout costs at least $7.75 million a year. AMA Wire, 2017.
11. Okuda Y, Iwasaki S, Deguchi Y, Nitta T, Mitake T, Sakaguchi A, et al. Burnout and occupational stressors among non-medical occupational health staff. Occup Med (Lond) 2020;70:45-51.
12. Maslach C, Schaufeli WB, Leiter MP. Job burnout. Annu Rev Psychol 2001;52:397-422.
13. Moghaddasi J, Mehralian H, Aslani Y, Masoodi R, Amiri M. Burnout among nurses working in medical and educational centers in Shahrekord, Iran. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res 2013;18:294-7.
14. Hertel-Joergensen M, Abrahamsen C, Jensen C. Translation, adaptation and psychometric validation of the Good Perioperative Nursing Care Scale (GPNCS) with surgical patients in perioperative care. Int J Orthop Trauma Nurs 2018;29:41-8.
15. Ranney ML, Griffeth V, Jha AK. Critical supply shortages—the need for ventilators and personal protective equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. N Engl J Med 2020;382:e41.
16. Burdorf A, Porru F, Rugulies R. The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic: consequences for occupational health. Scand J Work Environ Health 2020;46:229-30.
17. Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. JAMA 2020;323:1239-42.
18. Giuffrida A, Tondo L. As if a storm hit': more than 40 Italian health workers have died since crisis began. Guardian 2020;26.
19. Nemati M, Ebrahimi B, Nemati F. Assessment of Iranian nurses' knowledge and anxiety toward COVID-19 during the current outbreak in Iran. Arch Clin Infect Dis 2020;15(COVID-19):e102848.
Files
IssueVol 59, No 2 (2021) QRcode
SectionArticles
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/acta.v59i2.5577
Keywords
Maslach burnout inventory Health care providers Nurses and physicians Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Mousavi-asl B, Firouzifar M, Noury L, Khamushian P, Mousavi-asl D, Heidari F. Burnout Among Health Care Providers During COVID-19 Outbreak. Acta Med Iran. 2021;59(2):108-112.