Prevalence of the burnout syndrome in community pharmacists head of the rural pharmacy office in Spain

Objective: Measure by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) the three aspects of professional burnout, that allow to determine the extent of burn out worker syndrome (burnout) within the rural community pharmacists in Spain, correlating this with their socio-demographic characteristics and pharmaceutical care. Methodology: Transversal descriptive study with analytical components through self-administered surveys conducted by mail, addressed to a sample of head pharmacists in dispensing pharmacies in Spain from towns of up to 5,000 people. This stratified random sampling rate, was conducted in two waves, between June and November of 2009. A questionnaire that contained three types of variables was designed: socio-demographic, variables that allow characterizing the work of pharmacists in a rural pharmacy, and the 22 items of the MBI. The survey-based information was evaluated by descriptive analysis (frequencies, means and standard deviation) and an analytical approach based on simple analysis of variance and t-test of Student. Results: 9.52% of the pharmacists have burnout syndrome, and the values obtained for the three subscales, emotional exhaustion (EC), depersonalization (DP) and personal accomplishment (PA), showed average levels of affection for the three, with means and standard deviations of 16.4 (SD= 11.7), 5.4 (SD= 5.6) and 36.2 (SD= 9.3) respectively. The EC subscale showed signifi cant differences within autonomous communities, DP within population of the town, type of medical center in the town, parapharmacy products dispensed daily and annual invoicing of the pharmacy. And PA pharmacist's personal relationships and professional relationships with the physician. Conclusions: Worrying burnout levels have been obtained, albeit lower than those of other health professions, but with greater personal accomplishment. Latest news of the study: It has been determined for the first time the condition for burnout syndrome of rural pharmacists in Spain. (C) 2011 Ediciones Mayo, S.A. All rights reserved.