Findings controlled for personal characteristics, practice organization, practice environment
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 27, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Burnout among family physicians should not be attributed solely to practice organization, according to a study published in the November/December issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.
Jessica Creager, from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington, and colleagues used responses (1,437 physicians) from the 2017 American Board of Family Medicine Family Medicine Certification examination registration questionnaire to assess the relationship between practice organization and burnout.
The researchers found that the burnout rate was 43.7 percent overall but was 33.7 percent for physicians working in hospital-owned practices and 65.5 percent for those reporting no ownership stake in their practice. When adjusting for personal characteristics and practice organization factors, being in a hospital-owned practice (odds ratio, 1.68) and being a partial owner (odds ratio, 1.67) were positively associated with burnout. When further adjusting for practice environment, there was no practice organization variable that remained associated with burnout.
“Our study indicates that burnout is not intrinsic to any specific practice type or ownership status. Instead, features of the practice environment predict burnout and may provide a universal lever to lower burnout in all types of practice organizations,” the authors write. “Future interventional studies might focus on federal and hospital-owned practices as those most in need of solving and preventing physician burnout.”
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