Abstract
BackgroundSustained attention to the prevalence and associated factors of burnout in China is important for the health care service quality and related reform. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of job burnout among medical staff in Liaoning province, China; performed a survey of subjective perception ranking for the main stressors among respondents; estimated the effect of stresses from work tasks and the relationship with patients on job burnout in order to provide improved strategy and suggestion for hospital administrators.MethodsThe respondents were from 8 hospitals in 3 cities in Liaoning province, China. Data were collected and analyzed including the following sections: (1) demographic characteristics; (2) work situations; (3) ranking of six stressors; (4) job burnout scale; (5) effort-reward imbalance scale; (6) work violence scale; (7) fear of malpractice scale. A total of 1056 individuals became the study objects. A statistical analysis and hierarchical linear regression analysis were performed to explore the prevalence of burnout and the effects of stressors.ResultsThe prevalence of job burnout was 20.5, and 72.9% of all respondents reported a least one symptom of burnout. The respondents who were male, 30–39 years old, had a master’s degree or high and working hours > 60 h per week, came from obstetrics and gynecology or pediatrics profession prone to job burnout. The relationship with patients and work tasks are the top two ranking stressors in the subjective perception survey. Regression analysis showed that the relationship with patients explained 19.2, 16.8 and 2.0% of variance in burnout subscales EE, DP and PA, respectively and work tasks explained 23.5, 16.0 and 5.24% of variance in burnout subscales EE, DP and PA, respectively.ConclusionThe Chinese medical staff had high prevalence of job burnout. Some factors of demographic and work situations were associated with job burnout. The medical staff considered the relationship with patients and work tasks are the two major stressors. These two stressors are also the major indicators associated with job burnout. The hospital administrators should be aware of the risk of burnout. Efforts should be made to ameliorate the status of job burnout.
Highlights
Sustained attention to the prevalence and associated factors of burnout in China is important for the health care service quality and related reform
Our results showed that the relationship with patients and work tasks were the top two ranking stressors for Chinese medical staff, the stress from title promotion was another important stressor (Fig. 2)
The relationship with patient issue was measured using workplace violence scale (WVS) and fear of malpractice scale (FMS), which are indirect scales. These factors should be considered in the in-depth studies. This survey for Chinese medical staff in Liaoning province found that the medical staff had high prevalence of burnout; 72.9% of them had at least one symptom of burnout and 20.5% experienced high burnout
Summary
Sustained attention to the prevalence and associated factors of burnout in China is important for the health care service quality and related reform. Another systematic review showed the global prevalence of burnout symptoms among nurses was 11.23% [5]. A systematic review showed the rate of burnout among doctors in China was between 66.5 to 87.8% [8]. In China, due to the increasing demand from the vast population and limited available medical resources, including human resources, medical staff frequently experience work-related stress and energy deficiencies, which may deteriorate the situation of job burnout [15, 16]. Sustained attention to the prevalence and associated factors of burnout in Chinese medical staff is important to increase the health care service quality and related reform
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