Burnout syndrome among medical residents: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Burnout is a psychological syndrome that is very common among medical residents. It consists of emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP) and reduced personal accomplishment (PA). OBJECTIVE: To estimate burnout among different medical residency specialties. METHODS: A systematic review with meta-analysis was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A search of bibliographic databases and grey literature was conducted, from inception to March 2018. The following databases were accessed: Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus, and 3,575 studies were found. Methodological quality was evaluated by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Methodology Checklist for Cross-Sectional/Prevalence Study. In the final analysis, 26 papers were included. Their references were checked for additional studies, but none were included. RESULTS: 4,664 medical residents were included. High DP, EE and low PA proportions were compared. Specialties were distributed into three groups of different levels of burnout prevalence: general surgery, anesthesiology, obstetrics/gynecology and orthopedics (40.8%); internal medicine, plastic surgery and pediatrics (30.0%); and otolaryngology and neurology (15.4%). Overall burnout prevalence found for all specialties was 35.7%. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of burnout syndrome was significantly higher among surgical/urgency residencies than in clinical specialties. PROSPERO REGISTRATION: CRD42018090270.