BURNOUT SÍNDROME AMONG HEALTH PERSONNEL IN LATINAMERICA: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Introduction: Burnout syndrome (BS) in the health personnel has a negative impact on the quality of care, higher risk of iatrogenic complications and adverse effects have been observed when it is present. Objective: The objective of this review was to analyze studies carried out in Latin America which assess the frequency of BS among the health personnel in Latin American countries, as well as to observe differences in the prevalence of BS among medical specialties and compare these results with those obtained in other parts of the world. Methods: A search of articles published in English and Spanish was conducted in the PubMed database, using the terms Burnout syndrome AND Latin America, Burnout Syndrome AND Mexico, and so on with each of the Latin American countries Results: Twenty-nine articles met the inclusion criteria. In this review, the frequency of BS ranged from 2.1% to 76%. Higher frequencies of BS were observed in the areas of intensive care unit´s, oncology, emergency medicine, surgery, internal medicine and anesthesiology. Also, the amount of hours worked in the hospital and primary care were observed overloaded. There is an excess of labor demand compare to the human resources, and there were no measures to prevent the BS. Conclusion: The prevalence of BS found in this review is within the ranges found in other parts of the world. However, results in Latin America suggest that the amount of hours worked in the hospital and primary care are overloaded; there are no measures to prevent the BS, contributing to the excess of labor demand of the health care personnel. All these factors contribute to the increase in the frequency of BS.