Psychological features of doctors' emotional burnout

Abstract

Purpose. The article represents the results of the theoretical and empirical study of emotional burnout syndrome of medical practitioners. It is determined that emotional burnout syndrome is developed against the background of socio-professional factors impact of the pandemic. It is characterized by increase of workload and frequency of communication and interaction with patients, preconditioned by physical and emotional manifestations or suffering of patients. It is also distinguished by the complexity and difficulties of a patient's problems and ability or inability to solve them, accompanied by chronic professional stress, emotional and physical exhaustion. Methods. To study the syndrome of emotional burnout, we used the Questionnaire to study the level of mental burnout (MBI) (K. Maslach and S. Jackson, adaptation of N.E. Vodopyanova). The sample (n = 593) was: women - 71.3%, men - 28.7%, aged 29 to 63 years with work experience from 5 to 32-37 years. Results. Five groups of medics participated in the diagnosing according to the professional orientation features: “professional-age type”, ‘”traumatic type”, “general type”, “instrumental type”, and “severe conditions type”. It is determined that professional burnout level is uneven among the doctors of 5 groups in general. Three components have their peculiarities and differences. The component “emotional exhaustion” has the highest indicators, and the components “depersonalization” and “reduction of personality achievements” have slightly lower parameters under the existing epidemiological conditions. The level of professional burnout based on gender has been determined. Men and women have almost the same burnout degree. However, female doctors are more inclined to burnout than male physicians. According to the age and medical experience criteria, the results are different in terms of emotional burnout components. The leading signs of emotional burnout among medics are feelings of emotional exhaustion, anxiety, low mood, increased emotional control, psychoemotional and personality tension. The “exhaustion” component demonstrates symptoms of “emotional economy”, emotional (dosing of emotions in professional activities and family environment, absence of anxiety in a work process and increased anxiety towards one’s family members) and personality detachment (complete or partial loss of interest in non-professional life spheres, sense of burden in communication with the subjects of a non-professional sphere) among medical practitioners. Conclusions. Differences in the structure of emotional burnout constituents among 5 groups of doctors by professional orientation are preconditioned by the specifics of professional activity (performance of functional duties, length of working day, increase in numbers of visits to a medical specialist, peculiarities of patients).