Abstract
Objective: To study prevalence of and factors that contribute to burnout, career satisfaction, and well-being in US neurologists.
Methods: A total of 4,127 US American Academy of Neurology member neurologists who had finished training were surveyed using validated measures of burnout, career satisfaction, and well-being from January 19 to March 21, 2016.
Results: Response rate was 40.5% (1,671 of 4,127). Average age of participants was 51 years, with 65.3% male and nearly equal representation across US geographic regions. Approximately 60% of respondents had at least one symptom of burnout. Hours worked/week, nights on call/week, number of outpatients seen/week, and amount of clerical work were associated with greater burnout risk. Effective support staff, job autonomy, meaningful work, age, and subspecializing in epilepsy were associated with lower risk. Academic practice (AP) neurologists had a lower burnout rate and higher rates of career satisfaction and quality of life than clinical practice (CP) neurologists. Some factors contributing to burnout were shared between AP and CP, but some risks were unique to practice setting. Factors independently associated with profession satisfaction included meaningfulness of work, job autonomy, effectiveness of support staff, age, practicing sleep medicine (inverse relationship), and percent time in clinical practice (inverse relationship). Burnout was strongly associated with decreased career satisfaction.
Conclusions: Burnout is common in all neurology practice settings and subspecialties. The largest driver of career satisfaction is the meaning neurologists find in their work. The results from this survey will inform approaches needed to reduce burnout and promote career satisfaction and well-being in US neurologists.
GLOSSARY
- AAN=
- American Academy of Neurology;
- AP=
- academic practice;
- CP=
- clinical practice;
- MBI-HSS=
- Maslach Burnout Inventory–Human Services Survey;
- QOL=
- quality of life
Footnotes
Go to Neurology.org for full disclosures. Funding information and disclosures deemed relevant by the authors, if any, are provided at the end of the article.
Editorial, page 726
Supplemental data at Neurology.org
- Received August 31, 2016.
- Accepted in final form October 27, 2016.
- © 2017 American Academy of Neurology
Disputes & Debates: Rapid online correspondence
- Author response to Prof. Sethi
- Author response to Prof. Berger
- Burnout among US neurologists
- Burnout among neurologist: A unique predisposition?
- Author response: "Please don't call it burnout"
- Please don't call it burnout
- Author response to Dr. Giannouli
- Is it time to consider multilevel analyses as more appropriate when examining burnout among neurologists?
- Author response to Bagot et al.
- The impact of telemedicine to be considered for neurologists' burnout risk and career satisfaction
REQUIREMENTS
If you are uploading a letter concerning an article:
You must have updated your disclosures within six months: http://submit.neurology.org
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.