Professional burnout among expert physicians, patient-focused care, and trust in top management: Moving forward.

Abstract

Professional burnout in physicians is perceived as an inevitable occupational hazard inhibiting patient-focused care, the preferred approach of care, which enhances satisfaction of physicians with their work and improves clinical outcomes. Burnout jeopardizes the physical, mental, and emotional health of physicians, inhibiting high-quality care. Most individual-driven interventions and job-level interventions to reduce burnout proved inefficient or reduced burnout for only a short term. The potential of organizational processes to reduce burnout was acknowledged but is yet to be empirically tested. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study investigates the role of an organizational phenomenon, organizational trust among physicians in top management, on burnout. Data were collected across specialties in 10 out of 20 Israeli public general hospitals. The sample comprised 798 senior expert physicians. Measures were all previously published. Structural equation modeling was performed. Response rates ranged from 17% to 77% across the 10 hospitals. Mean burnout was 4.7 (SD = 0.68), mean patient-focused care was 3.9 (SD = 0.79), and mean organizational trust was 3.7 (SD = 0.84). Mean burnout for women was 5.6 and for physicians from internal medicine was 5.5. The structural equation modeling supported the proposed study model, which explained 45% of burnout. Organizational trust reduced burnout by 14%. Efforts to reduce burnout should integrate effective individual-level and job-level interventions with building trust among physicians in top management through implementing the paramount professional value of patient-focused care. Perceiving management, among physicians, as facilitating the value of patient-focused care led to organizational trust in top management, which was negatively associated with burnout.