Interventions to reduce burnout in healthcare workers
Citation: Panagioti M, Panagopoulou E, Bower P, et al. Controlled interventions to reduce burnout in physicians: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2017;177(2):195-205.
Language: Abstract and full text only available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: UK National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research and Medical Research Council Health eResearch Centre grant.
What is this? Effective interventions to reduce burnout in healthcare workers may help with the building of resilient health systems.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies of interventions to reduce burnout amongst physicians. They restricted their searches to articles published in English up to 31 May 2016. They included 19 studies, which were from Argentina (1 study), Australia (3), Canada (2), Europe (4), Israel (1) and USA (8).
What works/was found: In general, interventions produced small reductions in burnout.
Physician-directed interventions were associated with small reductions in burnout and organization-directed interventions were associated with medium reductions in burnout.
Implications: The authors of this review stated that burnout is associated with serious risks to both physicians and patients, making it imperative that physicians have access to evidence-based interventions that reduce the risk for burnout. They concluded that physicians could gain important benefits from interventions to reduce burnout, especially from organization-directed interventions.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of occupation.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi and edited and finalized by Mike Clarke.