Does burnout affect clinical reasoning? An observational study among residents in general practice

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Occupational Health
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Physician burnout, stemming from workplace stress, leads to emotional exhaustion and reduced efficiency.
• Existing research presents conflicting findings on the impact of burnout on physicians' clinical reasoning abilities.
• This study investigated the association between burnout and clinical reasoning in general practice residents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the relationship between burnout and clinical reasoning performance among general practice residents.
• To determine if burnout status affects the ability of residents to perform clinical reasoning tasks.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional observational study was conducted with 199 general practice residents in 2017 and 2019.
• Clinical reasoning was assessed using a script concordance test (SCT).
• Burnout status was evaluated using the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) with two different approaches.

Main Results:

• No significant correlation was found between burnout status and clinical reasoning performance (SCT scores).
• Using the conventional MBI-HSS approach, 63.31% of residents reported no burnout.
• An "emotional exhaustion +1" approach identified 19.10% of residents as having burnout.

Conclusions:

• Burnout status does not appear to significantly impact the analytical dimension of clinical reasoning assessed by SCT.
• The study suggests that burnout's impact on the intuitive dimension of clinical reasoning warrants further investigation.
• Future research should focus on exploring how burnout affects intuitive clinical reasoning processes.