Abstract
Occupational burnout is particularly widespread amongst surgical professionals. During the past 10 years, both the awareness and the ability to reliably measure and classify “burnout” in medical professionals have increased. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the current evidence on the burnout levels of general surgeons. Online searches were carried out using the scientific search engines PubMed, Embase, Cinahl, and Google scholar, from 2010 to 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Articles that met the inclusion criteria were critically evaluated using the critical appraisal skills programme (CASP) tool. Five studies pertaining to 669 subjects were included in this review. As expected, “burnout syndrome” was mainly due to the exhaustive and demanding conditions of working life and was strongly observed in general surgeons. The incidence of the burnout syndrome increased with their years of service, compromised their quality of life, and had detrimental effects on their mental and physical health. Personal achievements and emotional satisfaction were protective for the occurrence of the syndrome. We conclude that valid recognition and prevention of the burnout syndrome are necessary. Further research is needed to manage this phenomenon within the healthcare settings and the surgical departments.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Cassar G, Breitinger D (2019) What causes us to burnout at work? [online] World Economic Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/burnout-mental-health-pandemic/. Accessed 21 Dec 2020
WHO (2019). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. [online] www.who.int. Available at: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
Nota Ainda N (2012) Occupational burnout. Book on Demand
Cuff PA, Forstag EH (2019) A design thinking, systems approach to well-being within education and practice. https://doi.org/10.17226/25151
Kaschka WP, Korczak D, Broich K (2011) Burnout: a fashionable diagnosis. Deutsches Arzteblatt international 108(46):781–787. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2011.0781
Khamisa N, Oldenburg B, Peltzer K et al (2015) Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses. Int J Environ Res Public Health 12(1):652–666. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120100652
Raftopoulos V, Charalambous A, Talias M (2012) The factors associated with the burnout syndrome and fatigue in Cypriot nurses: a census report. BMC Public Health 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-457
Peckham C (2020) Medscape physician lifestyle report 2015. [online]. Medscape.com. Available at: https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/lifestyle-2015-overview-6006535#2. Accessed 21 Dec 2020.
Dyrbye LN (2011) Relationship between work-home conflicts and burnout among American surgeons. Arch Surg 146(2):211. https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2010.310
Oreskovich MR (2012) Prevalence of alcohol use disorders among American surgeons. Arch Surg 147(2):168. https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2011.1481
Shanafelt TD (2011) Special report. Arch Surg 146(1):54. https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2010.292
Maslach C, Jackson SE (1981) The measurement of experienced burnout. J Organ Behav 2(2):99–113. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030020205
Aveyard H (2019) Doing a literature review in health and social care: a practical guide, 4th edn. Open University Press, S.L.
Dimou FM, Eckelbarger D, Riall TS (2016) Surgeon burnout: a systematic review. J Am Coll Surg 222(6):1230–1239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2016.03.022
Stanetic K, Tesanovic G (2013) Influence of age and length of service on the level of stress and burnout syndrome. Med Rev 66(3–4):153–162. https://doi.org/10.2298/MPNS1304153S
Lindeman B, Petrusa E, McKinley S et al (2017) Association of burnout with emotional intelligence and personality in surgical residents: can we predict who is most at risk? J Surg Educ 74(6):e22–e30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2017.11.001
Weng H-C, Hung C-M, Liu Y-T et al (2011) Associations between emotional intelligence and doctor burnout, job satisfaction and patient satisfaction. Med Educ 45(8):835–842. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.03985.x
Beierle SP, Kirkpatrick BA, Heidel RE et al (2019) Evaluating and exploring variations in surgical resident emotional intelligence and burnout. J Surg Educ 76(3):628–636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2018.11.004
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Chalkias, P.L. et al. (2023). Burnout in General Surgeons. A Systematic Review. In: Vlamos, P. (eds) GeNeDis 2022. GeNeDis 2022. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 1425. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31986-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31986-0_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-31985-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-31986-0
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)