Professional burnout of medical workers in specialized departments

Objective: Evaluation of the features of professional burnout in general practitioners and general and specialized surgeons.

Materials and methods: The study was carried out within the framework of the complex topic of the Department of Occupational Diseases and Clinical Pharmacology named after Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation Professor V.V. Kosarev, Samara State Medical University, «Problems of polymorbidity, diagnostics, prognosis and prevention of occupational and work-related diseases in workers with isolated combined exposure to factors of the production environment and the work process» (registration number 124053000016-4, date of registration 05/30/2024). The study included: Group 1 – gastroenterologists (n=52), Group 2 – cardiologists (n=58), Group 3 – oncologists of the therapeutic (T) profile (n=48), Group 4 – general surgical (GS) profile (n=71), Group 5 – cardiovascular surgeons (n=30), Group 6 – surgical oncologists (S) profile (n=65), Group 7 (control) – workers of engineering and technical and economic profiles, not related by the profile of their activities to work in medical organizations (healthy) (n=75). The level of professional burnout in medical workers was assessed using the MBI method developed by K. Maslach, S. Jackson, as adapted by N.E. Vodopyanova. Statistical analysis was performed using the RStudio programming language and environment (R v.4.4.1, RStudio 2024.09.1+394). Descriptive statistics for continuous data were calculated as the mean, 95% confidence intervals (CI), for nonparametric data – the median, 25% and 75% quartiles and interquartile range. Although the data did not correspond to a normal distribution, the groups were larger than 30 observations, which, according to the central limit theorem, allowed to use the mean and 95% CI to describe the variables. The χ² test was used to compare percentages. When assessing differences in nonparametric data groups, the Mann-Whitney criteria for two comparison groups and the Kruskal-Wallis tests for more than 2 groups were used.

Results: The professional activity of doctors of T and S profiles was associated with the impact of chronic professional stress, leading to the development of professional burnout.

Conclusion Thus, the obtained data indicated the need to use specialized rehabilitation measures for doctors using relaxation techniques, art therapy, as well as professional adaptation programs, physiotherapeutic techniques such as electrosleep and reflexology, if possible, spa treatment in sanatoriums-preventoriums, local sanatoriums, etc. with visits to psychotherapeutic offices, as well as psychopharmacological drugs when identifying risk factors for increasing the level of professional burnout in medical workers provi-ding medical care in hospitals of therapeutic, general surgical and specialized profiles.