Burnout among female emergency medicine physicians: A nationwide study

Objective: The challenging and stressful nature of emergency medicine place the practitioners of this young branch of medicine at risk of burnout. In Iran, the number of women choosing the specialty of emergency medicine has been increasing in recent years. No studies have focused on burnout among female emergency medicine physicians. We conducted this study to evaluate the level of burnout in female emergency medicine physicians in Iran.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all Iranian female emergency medicine physicians with more than 2 years of work experience as specialists, received a questionnaire containing 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory scales and 7-item Cassidy social support scale, as well as questions about workload and career satisfaction.

Results: In total, 77 questionnaires were analysed (response rate: 75%; median age: 36 years, median for work experience = 3 years). A total of 34% of participants were academic faculties. The level of burnout in three subscales of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and perceived low personal accomplishment was moderate to high in 84.5, 48.1 and 80.5% of participants respectively. A total of 94.8% of female emergency medicine physicians perceived their workload to be moderate to high and only 1.3% of them had high job satisfaction.

Conclusions: Alarming high rate of burnout and job dissatisfaction among female emergency medicine physicians in our study requires careful attention. Further investigations are suggested to identify the contributory factors to burnout and the probability of some gender disparities in this field.