Stress and Burnout among Intensive Care Unit Healthcare Professionals in an Indian Tertiary Care Hospital

Intensive care unit (ICU) healthcare professionals work under a stressful environment which can lead to burnout syndrome. We conducted this study to evaluate the prevalence of stress and burnout syndrome among doctors and other healthcare professionals in ICU. We also evaluated the individual contributing factors for stress and burnout syndrome among these ICU healthcare workers. The cross-sectional survey was conducted among the healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, clinical pharmacists, respiratory therapists and physiotherapists) in the ICUs of multispecialty hospital in south India. The survey was conducted using well-accepted tools which included job satisfaction scale, perceived stress scale and Maslach burnout inventory–human service survey. Overall, 204 healthcare professionals completed the survey. The prevalence of high burnout in our study was 80% which included 6% (n = 12) of doctors and 69% (n = 140) of nurses. Our study showed statistically significant correlation between level of job satisfaction and the level of burnout. There was a significant correlation between the level of stress and the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization domains of Maslach burnout inventory. Critical care societies and institutional committees should step forward to draft policies and benchmarks to curb the causes of stress, reduce burnout and to increase the job satisfaction. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Lakshmikanthcharan S, Sivakumar MN, Hisham M. Stress and Burnout among Intensive Care Unit Healthcare Professionals in an Indian Tertiary Care Hospital. Indian J Crit Care Med 2019;23(10):462–466.