Physician Burnout Poses Risks to Patient Safety

Burnout can have profound physical and emotional consequences on physicians. A largemeta-analysis published today inJAMA Internal Medicine now clarifies the adverse effects of physician burnout on patient care. The meta-analysis found that physicians with burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents, more than twice as likely to deliver suboptimal care due to low professionalism, and more than twice as likely to receive low satisfaction ratings from patients.“We found that physician burnout is associated with a reduced efficiency of health care systems to deliver high quality, safe care to patients,” wrote Maria Panagioti, Ph.D., of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and colleagues. “Preventable adverse events cost several billions of d ollars to health care systems every year. Physician burnout therefore is costly for health care organizations and undermines a fundamental societal need for the receipt of safe care.”Panagioti and colleagues combined data from 47 separate studies that encompassed 42,473 physicians. The combined analysis showed that physician burnout was associated with a 1.96-fold increased risk of patient safety incidents (such as adverse events due to giving improper medications), 2.31-fold increased risk of poor quality of care due to low professionalism (such as failing to make proper referrals), and 2.28-fold increased risk of reduced patient satisfaction reports. Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: burnout depersonalization Maria Panagioti patient safety patient satisfaction physician burnout professionalism residency training Source Type: research