Presentations

Abstract

Introduction: Physician burnout is a phenomenon that has been highly documented in the medical literature over the past fifteen years with increasing numbers. While the findings indicate that physicians at all levels in their careers are affected, resident physicians are uniquely prone due to a variety of factors, such as transition from academic context to career experience, an increase in patient responsibility, and other work-related stresses. This systematic review adds to the findings of a previously published systematic review on the topic and documents the most recent findings from a 7-year period July 2016-July 31, 2023.

Main Body: A team of six investigators completed a systematic review on the topic using the updated PRISMA guidelines. An experienced investigator searched three databases (e.g., Embase, PubMed, Web of Science) using the following search terms, 1) Resident OR Residency Intern and 2) Burnout which resulted in a total of 12,550 peer-reviewed articles. Articles from the search were added to the Covidence program and duplicates were automatically removed. Inclusionary criteria were, 1) articles must be published in English, 2) the investigation was original research and not an abstract or review, 3) the study included an intervention, and 4) burnout outcomes. Two reviewers completed each step of the process (e.g., title/abstract screening, full-text review, data extraction, bias assessment) and a third reviewer solved any conflicts at each step in the process. Risk of bias was calculated according to the Cochrane ROB 2 tool or the ROBBINS-I tool, as appropriate. A total of 8958 peer-reviewed titles and abstracts were screened after the removal of duplicates over a two-month period and 347 full-text reviews were subsequently completed by the team, resulting in the inclusion of 95 articles for data extraction and final analysis. Burnout interventions of 7 types were highlighted across all investigations utilizing 7 burnout instruments. A total of 22 RCTs and 73 observational, pre-post designed trials were noted. In all, 6437 resident physician subjects were included in 95 investigations.

Conclusion: Although 8958 peer-reviewed articles have been published on the topic of physician burnout, only 95 of these studies included an intervention to look at this problem in a systematic manner. More prospective studies are warranted to investigate more intricate solutions to this widely documented phenomenon. Otherwise, the problem will continue to be documented without any real solutions.