ABSTRACT
Background: Burnout in health care professionals has been a source of great concern over the years. Burnout is a syndrome of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Lack of Personal Accomplishment. It can lead to negative consequences at personal, patientcare and healthcare system levels. Doctors who work especially in tertiary health institutions are predisposed to a high degree of burnout leading to poor job performance, clinical errors, career dissatisfaction and poor patient outcome.There are many studies onburnout worldwide, but few has been carried out specifically to determine its prevalence among doctors in tertiary health institutions particularly in Benin city.
Objectives: To assess the prevalence and determinants of burnout as well as the strategies adopted for coping with burnout among doctors in the University of Benin teaching hospital
Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used for this study. Three hundred and seventy-nine doctors in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital were selected for this study using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data was collected using self-administered pre-structured questionnaire adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory for measuring burnout and Brief - Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced Inventory (Brief-COPE). and analyzed using the IBM SPSS version 25.0 software.
Data was categorized and analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies and percentage based on the total number of respondents. Univariate analysis was carried out on the sociodemographic data to analyze the sample population, bivariate analysis was done to determine the relationship between variables such as: age, sex, burnout, etc. Multivariate analysis was done using multiple logistic regression to identify the correlation between variables. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. The results were presented with tables, charts and prose.
Results: A total of 379 medical doctors participated in the study. The mean age (SD) of respondents was 38.8+10.8 years. Majority of the respondents 64.0% (n = 254) were males and 65.2% (n = 247) of the respondents were married. A larger proportion 101 (26.6%) of respondents had spent >15years in residency while 253 (66.8%) had weekly call hours of48-72 hours. About two-thirds 240 (63.0%)of the resident doctors had burnout. Marital status, cadre, age group, number of calls per week and duration of practice was found to be significantly associated with burnout. A higher proportion, 215 (56.7%) had high level of emotional exhaustion. Also,a higher proportion 316 (83.4%) had high level of lack of personal accomplishments, while more than half 314 (82.8%) had low levels of depersonalization. Majority of the respondents reported increased clinical work overload342 (90.2%), being underpaid 344 (90.8%) and insufficient support from co-workers, 306 (80.7) as their major reasons for burnout. About three-quarters of respondents, 231(60.9%) felt increased susceptible to illness, 271 (71.5%) not having enough leisure time to attend to family and friends, 241 (63.6) absenteeism from work asthe major consequences of burnout. As a coping strategy, 114 (30.1%) of the respondents found comfort in their spiritual beliefs and 61 (16.1) got emotional support from others.
