Burnout and its related factors in staffs of university hospitals in Mashhad in 2006

Background: Burnout syndrome includes aspects of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, anddecrement of personal accomplishment. Medical staffs are vulnerable to burnout syndrome because oftheir exposure to physical and psychological stressors. The present study assessed the rate of burnoutsyndrome and its relation to demographic characteristics in medical staffs of university hospitals ofMashhad University of Medical Sciences.Material and method: In this descriptive-analytical study, we randomly selected 660 staffs ofuniversity hospitals of Mashhad by multi-stage sampling. Data was collected using the demographicquestionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) that assessed prevalence rates of different aspectsof burnout including emotional exhaustion (range 0-54), depersonalization (0-30) and personalaccomplishment (0-48) in likert rating scale. Data was statistically analyzed using SPSS.Results: This study showed that mean scores for emotional exhaustion, depersonalization andpersonal accomplishment of subjects were 20.74 (medium severity), 7.35 (medium severity) and 25.66(low severity), respectively. These dimensions of burnout had significant relationships with age,occupational history, and level of education, job and hospital. Emotional exhaustion anddepersonalization were higher in women than men. Married subjects had higher personalaccomplishment.Conclusions: The rates of all aspects of burnout syndrome were high in this study in comparisonwith other studies. Burnout affects the occupational, familial and personal functioning. In addition, itresults in absence from work and early retirement. Therefore, reduction of stressors in the hospitals byorganization of occupational factors should be considered.