An exploration of burnout and resilience among emergency physicians at three teaching hospitals in the English-speaking Caribbean: A cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: Burnout is common among doctors working in emergency departments. It has significant consequences and is multifactorial. Self-care and resilience tendencies may contribute to being burnt out, or not. This study explores burnout and resilience amongst physicians working in Caribbean emergency departments. METHODS: Data were collected from 111 participants using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Resilience Scale-14 (RS14) as measures of burnout and resilience, respectively. Questions collected data on participant demographics and characteristics related to self-care. The associations between demographic characteristics and total burnout and resilience scales were explored. FINDINGS: Among participants, 88.6% had medium to high range emotional exhaustion, 82.8% exhibited medium to high range depersonalization, and 19.6% had low to medium range personal accomplishment. Participants in Barbados had higher emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scores (p=0.009), and those in a postgraduate programme had higher depersonalization scores (p=0.047). The mean RS-14 score was 81.1 out of a maximum of 98.0 with a standard deviation of 13.1 and a range of 26 to 98. Depression correlated with high emotional exhaustion scores (p=0.004) and low resilience scores (p<0.0001). Emotional exhaustion scores increased among participants using alcohol daily (p=0.01), using recreational drugs (p=0.021) and sleeping aids (p=0.028). INTERPRETATION: High burnout, despite high resilience, is present in this sample of physicians working in emergency departments of teaching hospitals in the Caribbean. Although resilience scores were high, those with lower resilience tendencies had poorer self-care habits. FUNDING: No external funding.