Burnout syndrome among orthopedic surgeons: a systematic review and meta-analysis of worldwide data

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Burnout syndrome has been associated with serious consequences for healthcare providers and healthcare systems. Orthopedic surgeons, as professionals in a specialty that is physically and mentally demanding, commonly experience high-stress work circumstances. We aimed to identify and assess the burden of burnout syndrome among orthopedic surgeons. This study was conducted in accordance with the guidelines and recommendations of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) 2020. Studies were shortlisted by searching PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, Web of Science through Clarivate, and Google Scholar using keywords and medical subject headings terms related to burnout syndrome and orthopedics. Rayyan-intelligent systematic reviews were used to manage citations and remove duplicates. We used review manager 5.4 for quantitative data synthesis. Our meta-analysis included data from 16 studies on 2,564 orthopedic physicians, and quantitative data synthesis revealed that the pooled prevalence of high emotional exhaustion (EE) was 34% (95% CI: 27%, 40%), that of high depersonalization (DP) was 39% (95% CI: 29%, 50%), that of low sense of personal accomplishment (PA) was 24% (95% CI: 17%, 31%), and that of overall burnout was 43% (95% CI: 33%, 53%). There was significant heterogeneity in all analyses. In conclusion, burnout syndrome shows varying prevalence across different countries. The development of preventive measures may be necessary to alleviate the high rates of burnout among orthopedic surgeons.