Surgical trainee burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly significant for surgical trainees. The aim of this study was to systematically review the prevalence of burnout in surgical trainees during the pandemic, to compare rates of burnout between different specialties and to identify factors that may modify the risk of burnout.

A systematic review was undertaken following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) checklist to identify articles related to the keywords "surgeons burnout COVID-19" and "surgical trainees burnout COVID-19". A search was carried out on the PubMed/MEDLINE^® and ScienceDirect^® databases for articles published from January 2020 to August 2022.

A total of 19 articles met the inclusion criteria, with 3,866 surgical trainees included across all the studies. The overall prevalence of burnout in surgical trainees across the globe during the pandemic was between 9.1% and 95.2%. Burnout rates were higher in general surgery (33.1-95.2%) than in urology (17.6-54.6%), neurosurgery (16.2-44.1%) and orthopaedic surgery (9.1-44.1%). Otolaryngology trainees had the lowest burnout rate (10.9%). Factors associated with an increased risk of burnout included being a female trainee, being a more junior trainee and increased working hours.

There has been a high level of burnout among surgical trainees across the globe during the pandemic. In light of the devastating effect of COVID-19 on surgical training and the serious consequences of surgeon burnout (both for the individual and for the patients), targetted interventions for the prevention and treatment of burnout in surgical trainees are urgently needed, and must be prioritised by healthcare institutions and training programmes.