Wellness Principles Correlate With More Favorable Burnout Scores in Junior Anesthesiology Residents

Strategies to prevent or reduce burnout for anesthesiology residents remain relatively unexplored. We aimed to determine if participation in a wellness course would be associated with lower burnout.

A prospective, case-control survey/questionnaire study was implemented within a single anesthesiology residency in a large academic medical center program. One class participated in an inaugural wellness course (n = 15) promoting particular wellness principles 4 months into their postgraduate year (PGY)-1, while another class with no course participation served as controls (n = 13). Both groups completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) 6 months into their PGY-2 year. In addition, a survey measuring their perceived ability to implement wellness principles (regardless of course participation) as well as validated questionnaires measuring stress, depression, and sleep quality were administered.

Course participants had a trend toward lower MBI depersonalization scores; however, this was not statistically significant (MBI score 7 versus 12, P = .078, Cohen d 0.71). In a multivariable model, course participation yielded lower exhaustion scores (P = .011) whereas higher stress yielded higher exhaustion scores (P = .013), and higher depression scores yielded higher depersonalization scores (P = .019). A higher perceived ability to implement the wellness principles resulted in significantly better scores in all 3 burnout components (exhaustion P = .049, depersonalization P = .004 achievement P = .001).

Residents who felt they could implement wellness principles had lower burnout, regardless of course participation. Our brief course exposure had only marginal independent effects, suggesting that more longitudinal and repeated exposures to wellness training are likely required to produce a more effective outcome for mitigating burnout.