Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Jan;7(1):41-3.
doi: 10.1177/2150131915607799. Epub 2015 Sep 28.

Predictors and Outcomes of Burnout in Primary Care Physicians

Joseph Rabatin  1 , Eric Williams  2 , Linda Baier Manwell  3 , Mark D Schwartz  4 , Roger L Brown  3 , Mark Linzer  5
Affiliations

Predictors and Outcomes of Burnout in Primary Care Physicians

Joseph Rabatin et al. J Prim Care Community Health. 2016 Jan.

Abstract

Objective: To assess relationships between primary care work conditions, physician burnout, quality of care, and medical errors.

Methods: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of data from the MEMO (Minimizing Error, Maximizing Outcome) Study. Two surveys of 422 family physicians and general internists, administered 1 year apart, queried physician job satisfaction, stress and burnout, organizational culture, and intent to leave within 2 years. A chart audit of 1795 of their adult patients with diabetes and/or hypertension assessed care quality and medical errors.

Key results: Women physicians were almost twice as likely as men to report burnout (36% vs 19%, P < .001). Burned out clinicians reported less satisfaction (P < .001), more job stress (P < .001), more time pressure during visits (P < .01), more chaotic work conditions (P < .001), and less work control (P < .001). Their workplaces were less likely to emphasize work-life balance (P < .001) and they noted more intent to leave the practice (56% vs 21%, P < .001). There were no consistent relationships between burnout, care quality, and medical errors.

Conclusions: Burnout is highly associated with adverse work conditions and a greater intention to leave the practice, but not with adverse patient outcomes. Care quality thus appears to be preserved at great personal cost to primary care physicians. Efforts focused on workplace redesign and physician self-care are warranted to sustain the primary care workforce.

Keywords: burnout; medical errors; occupational stress; physician burnout; primary care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Wallace JE, Lemaire JB, Ghali WA. Physician wellness: a missing quality indicator. Lancet. 2009;374:1714-1721. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61424-0. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Shanafelt TD, Boone S, Tan L, et al. Burnout and satisfaction with work-life balance among US physicians relative to the general US population. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172:1377-1385. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3199. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Buchbinder SB, Wilson M, Melick CF, Powe NR. Estimates of costs of primary care physician turnover. Am J Manag Care. 1999;5:1431-1438. - PubMed
    1. Dolan ED, Mohr D, Lempa M, et al. Using a single item to measure burnout in primary care staff: a psychometric evaluation. J Gen Intern Med. 2015;30:582-587. doi:10.1007/s11606-014-3112-6. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Linzer M, Gerrity M, Douglas JA, McMurray JE, Williams ES, Konrad TR. Physician stress: results from the Physician Worklife Study. Stress Health. 2002;18:37-42. doi:10.1002/smi.917. - DOI

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources