Mid-career medical faculty women experience higher rates of burnout vs. men
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Key takeaways:
- Women experienced higher rates of personal and work-related burnout compared with men.
- Those with more sleep hours and an improved work climate reported lower rates of work-related burnout.
Mid-career medical faculty women reported higher rates of both personal and work-related burnout compared with men, according to survey results published in JAMA Network Open.
“The findings complement and extend prior work to demonstrate that experiences of workplace climate serve as a risk factor for burnout,” Kelly C. Paradis, PhD, DABR, associate professor and associate chair of well-being and equity in the department of radiation oncology at University of Michigan Medical School, told Healio. “This suggests an important target for interventions, with a specific focus on work climate for women.”
Mid-career burnout
“We know that burnout is prevalent among physicians, but there hasn’t been as much investigation into how mid-career medical faculty experience this phenomenon and what factors may be associated with it,” Paradis said.
The survey study included 841 mid-career medical faculty (50.7% men) who received new NIH K08 and K23 career development awards between 2006 and 2009. Researchers used the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) to evaluate both personal and work-related burnout and the associated risk factors, including gender differences, among award recipients compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic. CBI scores ranged from zero to 100, where those with a score of 50 or higher experienced a high degree of burnout.
Investigators additionally used a general climate elements scale to assess work climate, including friendliness, respect and collegiality, as well as a diversity, equity and inclusion climate elements scale that assessed homogeneity, sexism and homophobia, for which higher scores indicated a more favorable view of the work climate.
Factors of burnout
Researchers observed higher overall burnout rates among women vs. men (mean CBI personal scores, 46.6 vs. 37.5; P < .001; mean CBI work-related scores, 43.7 vs. 34.6; P < .001).
Results of multivariable models showed women experienced higher rates of personal burnout (adjusted OR = 2.29; 95% CI, 1.54-3.41), as well as those with more weekly hours of patient care (adjusted OR = 1.07; 95% CI, 1-1.15 for each 5-hour increase).
Conversely, personal burnout appeared less likely among those with more nightly sleep hours (adjusted OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.56-0.81 for each 1-hour increase) and those who reported an improved general work climate rating (adjusted OR = 0.64; 95% CI, 0.48-0.85 for each 1-point increase in general work climate scale score).
Women also experienced more work-related burnout compared with men (adjusted OR = 1.77; 95% CI, 1.17-2.69). Researchers observed an association between greater work-related burnout and an increase of 8 or more work hours per week during the study period vs. before the COVID-19 pandemic (adjusted OR = 1.87; 95% CI, 1.13-3.08), more weekly hours of patient care (adjusted OR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.03-1.19 for each 5-hour increase), and a workplace sexual harassment experience during the past 2 years (adjusted OR = 1.71; 95% CI, 1.11-2.62).
Factors associated with lower rates of work-related burnout included more nightly sleep hours (adjusted OR = 0.8; 95% CI, 0.66-0.96 for each 1-hour increase) and an improved general work climate rating (adjusted OR = 0.49; 95% CI, 0.36- 0.65 for each 1-point increase in general work climate scale score).
‘More work to do’
“Although the need for workplace climate change is not a new idea in academic medicine, this is the first study to our knowledge to show in a multivariable model an independent association with personal and work-related burnout for individuals practicing academic medicine,” Paradis told Healio. “As a medical physicist, I am looking for ways to improve the workplace climate in my field, which also still struggles with gender equity. There is certainly more work to do, but I’m hopeful that we will see continued progress.”
Paradis noted that this study is part of a larger research project directed by Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, FASCO, FASTRO.
“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is convening a symposium on burnout in October that Dr. Jagsi is chairing,” she said. “The hope is that the symposium will help drive progress to address this important challenge.”
For more information:
Kelly C. Paradis, PhD, DABR, can be reached at kyounge@med.umich.edu.
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