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Impact of burnout on empathy
Molly Reynolds1, Andrew McCombie2, Mark Jeffery3
1Trainee Intern, University of Otago, Christchurch and Canterbury District Health Board.
The New Zealand Medical Journal
|March 2, 2021
Summary
High personal burnout affects nearly half of senior medical officers. Empathy decreases as patient-related burnout increases, highlighting a complex relationship impacting healthcare professionals and patient care.
Area of Science:
- Medical professional wellbeing
- Physician empathy
- Healthcare worker burnout
Background:
- Burnout negatively impacts medical professionals and patient care.
- Empathy is crucial for the therapeutic relationship and may be affected by burnout.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine burnout prevalence among senior medical officers (SMOs).
- To assess empathy levels in SMOs.
- To investigate the relationship between burnout and empathy in SMOs.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional observational study of SMOs.
- Electronic survey using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory.
- Correlational analysis of 178 responses.
Main Results:
- High personal burnout reported by 45% of surveyed SMOs.
- Statistically significant negative correlation found between empathy and patient-related burnout (p=0.018).
Conclusions:
- High personal burnout is prevalent among SMOs.
- Empathy appears to decrease as patient-related burnout increases.
- Further research is needed to explore other contributing variables to this complex relationship.
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