Objective To evaluate job burnout situation among physicians specialized for tuberculosis (TB) prevention and treatment in medical institutions in Yunnan Province, analyze related influencing factors, and put forward policy recommendations to relieve their job burnout and facilitate team capacity building.
Methods Using self-designed questionnaires to collect data on demographic and sociologic features, basic job characteristics, professional identity, and job burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory) among 1 160 physicians specialized for TB prevention and treatment from 2 specialized TB hospitals, 29 county-or district-designated hospitals, and 29 county-or district-level centers for disease prevention and control of 3 cities in Yunnan, and the valid response rate was 95.7%. Rank sum test and ordinal logistic regression analysis were used for data analysis.
Results Of the 1 110 physicians specialized for TB prevention and treatment who participated the questionnaire survey, 774 (70.6%) showed different levels of job burnout, and the positive rates of mild, moderate, and severe job burnout were 41.2%, 22.5%, and 6.9%, respectively. There were significant differences in 9 professional identity items among different job burnout groups (P < 0.01). The multiple logistic regression analysis results showed that getting along well with colleagues (OR=0.7, 95%CI:0.7-0.9) and admitting they were TB specialized physicians (OR=0.9, 95%CI:0.8-1.0) were protective factors of job burnout; prejudice to TB patients for fear of infection (OR=1.2, 95%CI:1.1-1.4) and families' expectation on their leaving TB prevention and control work (OR=1.2, 95%CI:1.0-1.4) were risk factors of job burnout. The odds ratios of job burnout were 2.2 for both radiation physicians and clinical physicians versus managerial staff; 2.2 for those with 20-29 years of seniority versus those with < 10 years; 1.4 and 1.6 for those who experienced 0 and 1-2 times of training versus those who did 3 times and above; and 2.2 for those who served ≥ 200 TB patients per month versus those who served < 100 TB patients per month.
Conclusion A high positive rate of job burnout and a high proportion of severe-level job burnout are found in the studied physicians specialized for TB prevention and treatment in Yunnan Province. Such countermeasures as avoiding long-term overwork, strengthening infection control, formulating special occupational risk protection of respiratory diseases, improving public recognition and understanding of TB prevention and control, and raising physicians' salary and benefits are required to help control their job burnout.
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