Prevalence of burnout among doctors in the National Hospital of Sri Lanka

Burnout is emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment related to stressful working environment. According to the World Health Organization, burnout is defined as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
Objective of the study was to find out the prevalence of “burnout” among doctors in the National Hospital of Sri Lanka and to explore likely associations.
Method: Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) was given to 304 doctors where 26 were non responders. Pearson Chi-squared test with 95% confidence was used to assess possible associations of burnout.
Results: Factors associated with burnout were, age between 30-40 years (P=0.024), being single (P=0.007), not having children (P<0.05), being an intern or a postgraduate trainee (P<0.05) and not involving in the private medical practice (P=0.042). A higher proportion of interns have features of burnout (67.9%).
Conclusions: Burnout is a significant problem in the state health sector. This could have serious impacts on quality of patient care.