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 Feb;22(1):86-92.
doi: 10.1111/jep.12439. Epub 2015 Nov 13.

Linking medical faculty stress/burnout to willingness to implement medical school curriculum change: a preliminary investigation

Zeinab Arvandi  1 , Amirhossein Emami  2 , Nazila Zarghi  3   4 , Seyed Mohammad Alavinia  5 , Mandana Shirazi  6   7 , Sagar V Parikh  8
Affiliations
Free article

Linking medical faculty stress/burnout to willingness to implement medical school curriculum change: a preliminary investigation

Zeinab Arvandi et al. J Eval Clin Pract. 2016 Feb.
Free article

Abstract

Rationale, aims and objectives: Balancing administrative demands from the medical school while providing patient support and seeking academic advancement can cause personal hardship that ranges from high stress to clinically recognizable conditions such as burnout. Regarding the importance of clinical faculties' burnout and its effects on different aspects of their professional career, this study was conducted and aimed to evaluate the relationship between willingness to change teaching approaches as characterized by a modified stage-of-change model and measures of stress and burnout.

Methods: This descriptive analytic study was conducted on 143 clinical faculty members of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Participants were asked to complete three questionnaires: a modified stages of change questionnaire the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the General Health Questionnaire. Data were analysed by SPSS: 16 using non-parametric statistical tests such as multiple regression and ICC (intra-class coefficient) and Spearman correlation coefficient test.

Result: A significant relationship was found between faculty members' readiness to change teaching approaches and the subscales of occupational burnout. Specifically, participants with low occupational burnout were more likely to be in the action stage, while those with high burnout were in the attitude or intention stage, which could be understood as not being ready to implement change. There was no significant correlation between general health scores and stage of change.

Conclusions: We found it feasible to measure stages of change as well as stress/burnout in academic doctors. Occupational burnout directly reduces the readiness to change. To have successful academic reform in medical schools, it therefore would be beneficial to assess and manage occupational burnout among clinical faculty members.

Keywords: Medical education; burnout; curriculum reform; medicine; stages of change; stress.

PubMed Disclaimer