High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study

In the current cross-sectional study, levels of burnout among staff working in obstetrics and gynaecology at a referral hospital in Malawi were examined, in addition to individual and job characteristics that may be associated with burnout.In terms of the three dimensions of burnout, of the 101 participants, nearly three quarters (72%) reported emotional exhaustion, over one third (43%) reported depersonalization while almost three quarters (74%) experienced reduced personal accomplishment.Based on these findings, burnout appears to be common among participating maternal health staff and they experienced more burnout than their colleagues working in other medical settings and countries. Further research is needed to identify factors specific to Malawi that contribute to burnout in order to inform the development of prevention and treatment within the maternal health setting.Throughout Africa the human resource crisis has severely debilitated health systems and the quality of services delivered. As a result, the existing healthcare workforce often carries excessive and sometimes complex workloads [1]. For example, in Malawi the physician-patient ratio is one physician per 62,000 compared to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) recommended ratio of one per 5000. Moreover, nursing vacancies stand at 65% [2]. Working in these environments has potential for substantial workforce burnout resulting in impaired performance, negative attitudes, illness, absenteeism, and turnover [3-5].Burnout is a psychological term for the negative response to chronic job-related emotional stress. In other words, burnout results from people giving too much of their time, energy, and effort on the job over a long period of time without adequate time to recover physically or emotionally [6]. The prevalence of burnout among physicians ranges from 25 to 60%, and occurs at a level sufficient to affect personal or professional performance [7,8]. Among nurses/midwives 15 - 85% have reported bur