Burnout, professional fulfillment, and associated factors in academic oncology physicians.

Abstract

9005 Background: Occupational burnout has negative consequences on the health of individual physicians (MDs), patients, and health care systems. We assessed the prevalence of burnout and professional fulfillment (PF) in academic hematologists/medical oncologists (HO), general internists (GIM), and other internal medicine subspecialties (IMS) and evaluated factors associated with burnout and PF across specialty groups. Methods: Academic medical institutions participating in the Healthcare Professional Well-being Academic Consortium (PWAC) administered surveys including validated measures of burnout and PF, as well as variables influencing these domains. MDs with a subspecialty of HO, GIM, or IMS were included. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize characteristics of the cohort. Logistic regression was used to assess relationships between respondent characteristics (subspecialty, gender, age) and burnout/PF. Results: Fifteen academic medical centers administered surveys between 10/2019 and 7/2021.Of 19,532 (50.7% response rate) respondents, 579 were HO, 1912 GIM, and 1922 IMS. No significant difference in the proportion of respondents who met criteria for burnout was observed across groups (41.7% HO, 38.0% IMS, 40.4% GIM, p=0.11). HO MDs were more likely to have high professional fulfillment (44.5% HO, 38.8% IMS, 35.8% GIM, p-value <0.001). Determinants of burnout and PF varied across groups (Table) with HO MDs reporting less favorable scores for impact of work on personal relationships (p<0.001), self-valuation (p<0.001), and electronic health record (EHR) helpfulness (<0.001), but more favorable scores for meaning in work (p=0.02), control over schedule (p<0.001), and perceived gratitude for their work (p<0.001). Factors most closely associated with risk of burnout in HO MDs included negative impact of work on personal relationships (Cohen’s D 1.10), self-valuation (Cohen’s D 0.98), and control over schedule (Cohen’s D 0.90). Conclusions: In a large, multi-center study, HO MDs had similar rates of burnout but higher PF than other IM specialties. These results highlight the challenges and rewards of working in oncology and identify priority domains to improve oncologists’ work environments. Mean scores for determinants of burnout and PF across IM specialties. Assessment Scale HOn=579 IMSn=1922 GIMn=1912 Kruskal-Wallis P value Negative Impact of Work on Personal Relationships* 3.86 3.64 3.40 <0.001‡ Self-Valuation** 4.61 5.13 5.14 <0.001‡ EHR Helpfulness** 5.22 5.56 5.82 <0.001‡ Perceived Gratitude** 7.22 6.65 6.63 <0.001‡ Control over Schedule** 4.38 3.98 4.18 <0.001‡ Meaning in Work** 8.03 7.55 7.50 0.02 ‡ Sleep-Related Impairment* 3.20 3.03 2.95 0.04 Peer Support** 6.42 6.19 6.38 0.04 ‡ Statistically significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons. *Range 0-10, higher scores = unfavorable. **Range 0-10, higher scores = favorable.