This study aimed to investigate burnout among physicians during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was conducted in a pandemic hospital which is among the largest hospital complexes in Turkey. Internal medicine physicians actively working in many departments under the severe conditions in the diagnosis and treatment processes were included. Among the physicians constituting the study population, residents, attendings, and subspecialists from different fields were included. These physicians were working in the quarantine services, inpatient services, intensive care units, and polyclinics. A short and easy face-to-face survey, in which included questions on demographic information, medicolegal subjects, and questions from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, was used to collect data. While 58.2% of the physicians stated that they were extremely worried about malpractice in the pandemic period, 82.1% stated they needed training on medicolegal subjects, and 25.4% stated they were exposed to violence during work. Three sub-dimensions within the burnout inventory were compared with other parameters. The Cronbach alpha value was found highly reliable in the evaluation of the answers' internal consistency. The notable significance of burnout was interesting regarding physicians' anxiety on medicolegal issues and exposure to violence (p < 0.05). The findings obtained in this study suggest that healthcare workers' motivations will increase if they feel valued, their working conditions have been improved, and if they are in mentally well. This mental wellness may contribute to fighting public health crises such as a pandemic more efficiently with the lowest number of casualties.
Burnout among physicians working in a pandemic hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic