Association Of Burnout Syndrome with Social Factors in Physical Therapists

Burnout Syndrome with Social Factors

Abstract

Background: Burnout syndrome is a psychosocial syndrome resulting from the interaction between chronic occupational stress and individual factors that affects quality of lives of professionals or individuals. It is common in helping professionals of the medical field and causes exhaustion, decreased work productivity, chronic fatigue, stress and emotional exhaustion.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association of burnout syndrome with social factors in physical therapist

Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 195 participants. For the collection of the data, Maslach Burnout Inventory Survey was used to evaluate its three components emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP) and personal assessment (PA) among physiotherapists working in both government and private sectors. The participants were of both gender (111 males and 84 females) between 25-55 years of age. Pearson's chi square test was performed to assess the association between burnout and particular participant and social factors. Written consent was taken from the participants and the importance of the study explained before filling the questionnaires.

Results: The study demonstrated that mean +SD score for emotional exhaustion was 2.16+0.87, mean +SD score for depersonalization was 2.39+ 0.71 and mean +SD score for personal assessment was 1.60+ 0.77. Out of 195 physiotherapists including 111 males and 84 females, 93 physiotherapists (47%) results showed high degree of emotional exhaustion, 103 physiotherapists (52%) showed high degree of depersonalization (DP) and 112 (57%) showed low degree of personal assessment (PA). The standardized P value was 0.05.

Conclusion: This study concluded that physical therapist of Pakistan was at high risk of developing burnout syndrome. Being young and male were the main predisposing factors for the burnout syndrome. Male and younger physical therapists were more likely to suffer elevated degrees of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization compared to females and female’s physiotherapists were more likely to suffer elevated degree of personal assessment as compared to males.

Key words: Burnout syndrome, Physiotherapists, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal assessment, Maslach Burnout-Inventory.