Burnout Among Urologists from Denmark and Michigan

To investigate the prevalence of burnout among Danish and American urologists.

An email invitation was sent with 2 reminders spaced by 14 days intervals to members of the Danish Urological Association and urologists at the University of Michigan to participate in a survey consisting of the 2 item Maslach Burnout Inventory. Burnout was defined as reporting "once a week," "a few times a week," or "everyday" on either the emotional exhaustion or depersonalization domains of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Two open-ended questions were added to the survey for the Danish urologists, these were then qualitatively analyzed using thematic analysis. Categorial variables were compared using Chi square analysis.

The response rate was 193 of 387 (49.9%) for the Danish urologists and 43 of 64 (67.1%) among American urologists. The prevalence of burnout for the American and Danish cohorts was identified in 4 (44.4%) of the American residents and 10 (32.3%) of the American attendings compared to 2 (3%) of Danish residents and 16 (12.7%) of Danish attendings. The difference in rate of burnout between Danish residents and attendings was statistically significant (P= .03). Burnout was statistically significantly different between American and Danish residents (P<.01) and attendings (P <.01). There was a statistically significant difference in rates of burnout between American and the Danish female urologists (P = .02) and similarly among male urologists (P <.01).

This study demonstrated low rates of burnout among Danish urologists and a significant difference in burnout between residents and attendings from Michigan compared to Danish residents and attendings.