Daem Initiative by the SCFHS: Perceived Effectiveness and Resident Awareness to Reduce Burnout among Saudi Residents

Introduction: The Saudi Commission for Health Specialties provides academic and psychological support system called Daem which ensure the help with maintain of privacy and confidentiality. They provide interactive guidance to the residents during their training stage to improve psychological health and prevent burnout. This study aimed to conduct the first comprehensive evaluation of the psychological support system daem and its association with work burnout among medical residents in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This a cross-sectional study recruited resident who are actively enrolled in any of SCFHS accredited programs. For at least 9 months. The sample was a convenient sampling technique using online link that was sent to the phones of the residents containing a self-administered questionnaire. The non-respondents were reminded every week and the online link was sent again. If they won?t respond, they were phoned and interviewed through telephone. We used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data about study variables. The questionnaire consists of two sections, section A focused on socio-economic characteristics of the participants and section B contained questions about awareness of daem service, while section C is Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) for burnout assessment. Results: A total of 356 residents, who have been enrolled in the SCFHS accredited programs, were included in this study. More than a half of the respondents were male (63.5%) and about three quarters aged 25-30 years old. Although low awareness, utilization, and satisfaction with daemsystem, a high awareness about burnout was reported in this study, as 94.4% believed that residents should be screened for symptoms of burnout. This study found that 17.1% of the residents had a documented history of burnout. Furthermore, the findings revealed that 66.2%, 70.2%, and 3.8% had a high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment, respectively. The mean score of emotional exhaustion was 31.1+12.2 while the mean score of personalization was 12.4+5.8. Age, presence of a chronic disease, working in night shift, history of burnout, and availability of burnout support system were found significantly related to high emotional exhaustion. Conclusions: A high prevalence of burnout was found among residents who have been enrolled in the SCFHS accredited programs. About two thirds of the residents suffered emotional exhaustion or depersonalization. Moreover, low awareness, utilization and satisfaction rates towards daem system, were reported among the residents. However, most of the residents were aware about the importance of screening for work burnout.