Burnout Interventions for Resident Physicians: A Scoping Review of Their Content, Format, and Effectiveness

Physicians face a high rate of burnout, especially during the residency training period when trainees often experience a rapid increase in professional responsibilities and expectations. Effective burnout prevention programs for resident physicians are needed to address this significant issue.

To examine the content, format, and effectiveness of resident burnout interventions published in the last 10 years.

The literature search was conducted on the MEDLINE database with the following keywords: internship, residency, health promotion, wellness, occupational stress, burnout, program evaluation, and program. Only studies published in English between 2010 and 2020 were included. Exclusion criteria were studies on interventions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, studies on duty hour restrictions, and studies without assessment of resident well-being postintervention.

Thirty studies were included, with 2 randomized controlled trials, 3 case-control studies, 20 pretest and posttest studies, and 5 case reports. Of the 23 studies that used a validated well-being assessment tool, 10 reported improvements postintervention. These effective burnout interventions were longitudinal and included wellness training (7 of 10), physical activities (4 of 10), healthy dietary habits (2 of 10), social activities (1 of 10), formal mentorship programs (1 of 10), and health checkups (1 of 10). Combinations of burnout interventions, low numbers of program participants with high dropout rates, lack of a control group, and lack of standardized well-being assessment are the limitations identified.

Longitudinal wellness training and other interventions appear effective in reducing resident burnout. However, the validity and generalizability of the results are limited by the study designs.