Portuguese Doctors´ Health: psychosocial factors relevant for burnout prevention

Introduction
For physicians in many countries, stressful situations, heavy professional responsibilities, work overload, and shift work have been shown to be major determinants of burnout. Although this has important personal and clinical repercussions, it has never been adequately assessed in Portugal.

Methods
Physician burnout and other psychosocial risk factors were assessed by a questionnaire which included a short version of Maslach Burnout Inventory (exhaustion, cynicism, professional efficacy), the Worklife Scale (workload, values congruence) and socio-demographic questions. Using the address data base of the Portuguese Medical Association, questionnaires were sent to 35,000 physicians, yielding 2620 useable responses out of 3200 received. Correlations and means testing were used to assess relationships between variables.

Results
Average burnout levels in exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy were all below reference values. Significant differences were identified by age, gender (with women showing more exhaustion), and sleep (with more sleep associated with less exhaustion and cynicism). Burnout is positively correlated with health self perception, which means, that more burnout indicates a worse health self perception.

Discussion
Burnout among Portuguese physicians can detract from wellness and create reduced career satisfaction and productivity. Our data suggests that ensuring adequate sleep for all physicians, and additional support, especially for female and older physicians, can help remediate this.