Prevalence and factors affecting burnout among medical professionals – A cross sectional study from a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: Increasingly many studies across the globe in the recent past have documented increase in prevalence of burnout among various cadres of health care professionals at very young age. Even though the burden, influencing factors and adverse consequences of burnout on professional and personal life have been documented by many studies from the west, there are very few studies conducted on the subject in Indian health care providers. The current study has been undertaken to assess the prevalence of burn out and factors influencing it among clinicians in an urban tertiary care hospital in a state of Tamil Nadu. Materials and methods: The current study was a cross sectional of 73 clinicians working in a single tertiary care teaching hospital, who were selected by convenient sampling. Burn out was assessed by Maslach Burnout Inventory scale. Results: The proportion of overall burnout reported in the study was 34.2%. Among the all the potential factors, which were assessed for their association with burnout in the study population, the factors which have shown statistically significant association were experience less than 4 years (Odds ratio 3.24, 95% CI 1.16 to 8.99), Hours of sleep < 6 hours (OR 7.45, 95% CI 4.98 to 9.92) and regular night duties (OR=3.25, 95% CI 1.17 to 9.02). Conclusion: The prevalence of burnouts in south India is around 34.2% is slightly lower compared to the prevalence reported in western studies. Limited experience, regular night duties and sleep duration less than 6 hours were associated with burnout.