AAFP offers 2-minute well-being assessment tool for clinicians

The American Academy of Family Physicians is providing its members with a 2-minute assessment that measures clinicians’ professional satisfaction.

Clif Knight, MD, AAFP senior vice president for education, told Healio Primary Care that the Physician Well-Being assessment tool asks about physicians’ sense of meaning in their work, whether they experience fatigue, and questions about their work-life balance, among other factors. The tool allows clinicians to track their well-being over time and compare it with that of their peers.

He added that although studies from some of the leading researchers on burnout were used to develop the AAFP tool, it is not just another way to assess and diagnose burnout.

“If you test someone for diabetes, and they don't have diabetes, you don’t automatically assume there is nothing else wrong with them since you know there are a lot of things that go into wellness besides diabetes,” Knight said.

 

“Think of our tool that way,” he said. “You may or you may not be burned out, but you may still not be well. The goal of our tool is to work toward an optimized sense of well-being where users are physically and mentally well. We want physicians to feel a sense of joy in what they're doing, we want them to feel happy about what they're doing and want them to feel professionally satisfied.”

AAFP’s Physician Well-Being assessment tool, available by logging into AAFP’s website, is the latest offering in the organization’s nearly 3-year-old Physician Health First initiative. The AAFP’s website states that the program’s goal is to “improve the well-being and personal satisfaction of family physicians and reversing the trend toward physician burnout.” – by Janel Miller

Reference:

AAFP. Physicians Health First. https://www.aafp.org/about/initiatives/physician-health-first.html. Accessed Jan. 7, 2020.

Disclosure: Knight is employed by AAFP.