Empathy and Burnout During Residency: Which Changes First?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Healthcare Professionals

Background:

• Declining empathy and increasing burnout are significant concerns in medical residency programs.
• Previous research indicates these trends in medical students and residents, but the sequence remains unclear.
• Cross-sectional studies limit understanding of the temporal relationship between empathy decline and burnout.

Purpose of the Study:

• To clarify the sequence of empathy decline and burnout increase in medical residents.
• To conduct an individually-paired longitudinal analysis of empathy and burnout changes.

Main Methods:

• 35 family medicine residents participated in an empathy survey and burnout assessment annually and mid-year from 2017.
• Data were analyzed by aligning empathy scores with subsequent burnout measures and vice versa.
• A high response rate of 94% (125 out of 133 opportunities) was achieved.

Main Results:

• Burnout measures significantly increased over the residency years (P<.001).
• Empathy scores showed a slight initial decrease followed by a near-baseline improvement, without a significant quadratic trend.
• When burnout changes preceded empathy changes, a significant negative correlation was found (Spearman's ρ=-.300, P=.006).

Conclusions:

• In this cohort, increased burnout occurred before decreases in empathy.
• Findings suggest that interventions targeting burnout may be crucial for mitigating empathy decline in residents.
• Further research is needed to support these findings and inform residency program strategies.