Burnout Syndrome in a Military Tertiary Hospital Staff during the COVID-19 Contingency

Adriana Martínez-Cuazitl,Antonio García-Ruíz,Juan Salvador García-Hernández,Héctor Faustino Noyola-Villalobos,Mayra Gabriela García-Araiza,Arleth Sarai Chávez-Velasco,Jorge Arturo García-Dávila,Guadalupe Maza-De La Torre,Edgardo Alonso Montelongo-Mercado,Sergio Hernández-Díaz,Dora Luz Villegas-Tapia,Eira Cerda-Reyes,Iván Noé Martínez-Salazar

doi:10.3390/ijerph19042229

Adriana Martínez-Cuazitl, Antonio García-Ruíz + Show 11 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042229

Copy DOI

Abstract

(1) Background: Burnout syndrome (BOS) is defined as a psychological state of physical and mental fatigue associated with work. The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted the physical and mental wellbeing of health professionals. The objective of this work was to determine the impact on personnel, monitoring the frequency of BOS throughout the pandemic. (2) Methods: The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was self-applied in four periods of the pandemic according to sociodemographic and employment characteristics. In this study, all hospital personnel were included; the association of BOS with sex, age, type of participant (civilian or military), military rank and profession was analyzed. (3) Results: The frequency of BOS was 2.4% (start of the pandemic), 7.9% (peak of the first wave), 3.7% (end of the first wave) and 3.6% (peak of the third wave). Emotional exhaustion (EE) was the most affected factor, and the groups most affected were men under 30 years of age, civilians, chiefs and doctors, especially undergraduate medical doctors and specialty resident doctors, and nursing personnel were less affected. (4) Conclusions: The low BOS levels show that the containment measures and military training implemented by the hospital authorities were effective, although the chief personnel were more affected in the first wave. It is probable that this combination allowed the containment of BOS, which was not observed in civilians.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic had an overwhelming impact on healthcare professionals.Due to changes in healthcare, cessation of services, adaptation of care areas, reassignment of staff to unfamiliar settings and clinical fields in which they are not experts, as well as limited resources, have caused negative physical and mental consequences
Maslach Burnout Inventory self-application was performed in April 2020, June 2020, September 2020 and September 2021 in a tertiary care hospital in Mexico using the SurveyMonkey®
The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on staff working in hospital centers has previously been studied

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic had an overwhelming impact on healthcare professionals.Due to changes in healthcare, cessation of services, adaptation of care areas, reassignment of staff to unfamiliar settings and clinical fields in which they are not experts, as well as limited resources, have caused negative physical and mental consequences. The care and monitoring of the wellbeing of health professionals became imperative [1,2,3] In countries such as Singapore, hospitals responded to the pandemic by increasing measures to prevent contagion, detect infection early, reduce care for other pathologies, and cancel elective procedures [4]. In Mexico, tertiary hospitals were converted to hospitals for COVID care, which involved restructuring the facilities as well as changing care services, for which the available staff were given training. They later provided care for COVID-19 patients from triage to critical patient care [5]. Some were displaced to other work facilities, and even to other states in the country

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion