Burnout in French General Practitioners: A Nationwide Prospective Study

Abstract

Background: We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of burnout among French general practitioners in private practice and to study the risk and protective factors of burnout. Methods: A nationwide cross-sectional study was conducted with French GPs working in a private practice in France who were asked to fulfil an internet questionnaire. We used the secure internet application REDCap®. Exclusion criteria were only working in a hospital, substitute doctors, and internship students. There was a putative sample size of 88,886 GPs. We retrieved the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), occupational characteristics (type of installation, emergency regulated shifts, night shifts, university supervisor, weekly hours worked, seniority), and personal characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, and number of children. Results: We included 1926 GPs among the 2602 retrieved questionnaires. A total of 44.8% of French liberal GPs were experiencing burnout, with 4.8% (95%CI 3.9–5.9%) experiencing severe burnout. The risk factors of severe burnout were male gender (RR = 1.91, 95%CI 1.15–3.16), working in a suburban area (5.23, 2.18–12.58), and having more than 28 appointments per day (1.95, 1.19–3.19). Working more than 50 h weekly showed a tendency to increase the risk of severe burnout (1.55, 0.93–2.59, p = 0.095), with a significant increase in the risk of low and moderate burnout (1.31, 1.02–1.67 and 1.86, 1.34–2.57, respectively). Protective factors were mainly resident training, which decreased the risk of both low, moderate, and severe burnout (0.65, 0.51–0.83; 0.66, 0.48–0.92; and 0.42, 95%CI 0.23–0.76, respectively). Performing home visits decreased the risk of severe burnout (0.25, 0.13–0.47), as did group practice for intermediate level of burnout (0.71, 0.51–0.96). Conclusion: GPs are at a high risk of burnout, with nearly half of them in burnout, with burnout predominantly affecting males and those between the ages of 50 and 60 years old. The main risk factors were a high workload with more than 28 appointments per day or 50 h of work per week, and the main protective factors were related to social cohesion such having a teaching role and working in a group practice with back-office support.

Prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Healthcare Workers following the First SARS-CoV Epidemic of 2003: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…All of the included studies were based on self-reported questionnaires that may lack standardized interviews; however, self-report questionnaires enable comparisons between the studies. The percentage of respondents within those studies may seem low, from 15% [ 37 ] to 75% [ 39 ]; however, the response rate was higher than usual [ 60 , 61 ]. Questionnaires are also subject to declarative bias [ 62 ].…”

Explaining and addressing the limitations in usefulness of available estimated prevalence figures relating to burnout in family doctors: Evidence from a systematic scoping literature review

“…Again, these secondary sources were mainly the MBI manual. Regarding Picquendar et al (2019), Dutheil et al (2021), andBodendieck et al (2022), it was not clear that their cited Soler et al (2008), Choron et al (2016), or Kalimo et al (2003), respectively, provided them with support. Shanafelt et al (2012Shanafelt et al ( , 2015Shanafelt et al ( , 2019Shanafelt et al ( , 2022 were clear in explaining that High EE and/or High DP was a long-standing "convention" rather than having a clinical basis (Shanafelt et al, 2002), while Twellaar et al (2008) and Houkes et al (2011) reported on the research-based High EE, plus either High DP or Low PA when using the Dutch MBI (Schaufeli and van Dierendonck, 2000).…”

“…and three dimensions in the most unfavorable score ranges, respectively (Dutheil et al, 2021); and 6% with a "high degree of burnout" was based on scoring combined High EE and High DP and Low PA (Arigoni et al, 2009). We designated such claims as implied clinical severity (see Table 4).…”

Burnout among French dermatologists: A national study

“…A recent study evaluated the prevalence of burnout among GPs practising town practices. 1 The FFFCDEV wanted to evaluate the prevalence of burnout among French dermatologists practising in all types of practice to study the risk and protective factors. In the framework of this evaluation, the FFFCDEV distributed a digital questionnaire including the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), 2 professional characteristics (year of thesis, exercise modalities and daily working time) and personal characteristics such as gender, marital status and number of dependents after work, sports activity or religious practice.…”