Burnout and perceived health in medical residents after the COVID-19 pandemic: a single-center cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Residents have a high risk of burnout during the training period. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on work conditions and health of medical residents. We therefore estimated the prevalence of post-pandemic burnout and perceived health, and their relationship with psychosocial factors, stress profile, and job satisfaction, as well as the pre-post pandemic changes.Methods: We carried out a retrospective cross-sectional, online, anonymous survey using the validated FPSICO-4.0 questionnaire in a teaching hospital after the COVID-19 pandemic (2023). We also studied the pre-post changes from an independent pre-pandemic online survey (2018) with the same tool.Results: One hundred ninety-seven residents, 64% females, answered the questionnaire (43.5%); 28% had post-pandemic burnout without gender differences, being higher in surgical specialties (p=0.017) and along residency years (p=0.041). Role performance, behavior stress, job satisfaction and residency years were associated with an increase in odds of burnout (p<0.05). Supervision, conflict of role/cognitive stress explained 35% of the variation in perceived general health (adjusted-R2 = 0.356); temporary autonomy, supervision, information/training/promotion, behavior/somatic stress, and job satisfaction did 68% of mental health (adjusted-R2 = 0.683); and take decisions, conflict of role, behavior/somatic/cognitive stress, and male gender did 62% of vitality (adjusted-R2 = 0.624). Pre/post pandemic mean differences, adjusted by gender and residency year, showed deterioration of variety sense of work (p<0.001), effort of attention (p=0.026), behavior stress (p=0.022), and improvement of temporary autonomy (p=0.045).Conclusions: The identification after pandemic of high prevalence of burnout, stress levels and certain psychosocial risk factors (role performance and supervision), highlights the need of specific health promotion plan.