Emergency Services During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A Gender Comparison of Burnout Risk and Personality Traits in the Kharkiv City Sample

Introduction: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic presented unique challenges to the health-care system and prehospital emergency medical services. An increasing prevalence of burnout has been described, which in turn is associated with mental illness. The aim of this paper was to evaluate burnout through a sex comparison and to analyze associations of burnout with personality traits during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Methods: Eighty-eight emergency physicians and field shearers of Kharkiv City (Ukraine) emergency medical services (52% women) participated in the quantitative cross-sectional study. In addition to sociodemographic and occupational data, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Freiburg Personality Inventory (FPI) were applied and analyzed in the sex comparison. Correlation analyses were performed to describe the relationships between the MBI dimensions and FPI traits. Results: The average age of the respondents was 35.1 +/- 13.5 years. The prevalence of burnout during the pandemic was 6.5% in women and 2.4% in men. Only the scores on the MBI dimension cynicism were significantly (p = 0.027) higher in women than in men. Two personality traits differed between sexes: inhibition and male/female self-reports. Predominantly moderate correlations were found between the FPI traits and the MBI dimensions. Conclusions: Although the prevalence of burnout in this occupational group during the pandemic was similar to prepandemic figures reported in the literature, more than half of the male and female paramedics showed average-to-high scores on the three MBI dimensions. Because burnout is associated with other mental illnesses and prolonged incapacity, workplace-based interventions should be implemented.