RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, health professionals have been working under extreme conditions, increasing the risk of physical and mental illness. We evaluated the prevalence of burnout and its associated factors among postgraduate student residents in health professions during the global health crisis. METHODS: Healthcare residents were recruited from all across Brazil between July and September 2020 through digital forms containing instruments for assessing burnout (Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI)), resilience (brief resilient coping scale (BRCS)) and anxiety, stress and depression (depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS-21) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)). Additionally, the relationships between burnout and chronic diseases, autonomy and educational adequacy in the residency programme, personal protective equipment (PPE), workload and care for patients with COVID-19 were evaluated. The chi-square test, Student's t test, Pearson's correlation test and logistic regression were performed. RESULTS: A total of 1,313 participants were included: mean (standard deviation) age, 27.8 (4.4) years; female gender, 78.1%; white race, 59.3%; and physicians, 51.3%. The overall prevalence of burnout was 33.4%. The odds (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]) of burnout were higher in the presence of pre-existing diseases (1.76 [1.26-2.47]) and weekly work > 60 h (1.36 [1.03-1.79]) and were lower in the presence of high resilience (0.84 [0.81-0.88]), autonomy (0.87 [0.81-0.93]), and educational structure (0.77 [0.73-0.82]), adequate availability of PPE (0.72 [0.63-0.83]) and non-white race (0.63 [0.47-0.83]). Burnout was correlated with anxiety (r = 0.47; p < 0.05), stress (r: 0.58; p < 0.05) and depression (r: 0.65; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We observed a high prevalence of burnout among residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual characteristics and conditions related to the work environment were associated with a higher or lower occurrence of the syndrome.
Assuntos
Esgotamento Profissional , COVID-19 , Humanos , Feminino , Adulto , COVID-19/epidemiologia , Prevalência , Pandemias , Estudos Transversais , Esgotamento Profissional/epidemiologiaRESUMO
BACKGROUND: In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the world and exposed the fragility of health systems in the face of mass illness. Health professionals became protagonists, fulfilling their mission at the risk of physical and mental illness. The study aimed to evaluate absenteeism indirectly related to SARS-CoV-2 infection in a large population of health care professionals. METHODS: An observational longitudinal repeated measures study was performed, including workers linked to 40 public university hospitals in Brazil. All causes of absenteeism were analyzed, focusing on those not directly attributed to COVID-19. Results for the same population were compared over two equivalent time intervals: prepandemic and during the pandemic. FINDINGS: A total of 32,691 workers were included in the study, with health professionals comprising 82.5% of the sample. Comparison of the periods before and during the pandemic showed a 26.6% reduction in work absence for all causes, except for COVID-19 and mental health-related absence. Concerning work absence related to mental health, the odds ratio was 39.0% higher during the pandemic. At the onset of the pandemic, there was an increase in absenteeism (all causes), followed by a progressive reduction until the end of the observation period. INTERPRETATION: Work absence related to mental illness among health care professionals increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for health care managers to prioritize and implement support strategies to minimize absenteeism.