Burnout of Physiotherapists in Primary Health Care and Hospitals of Thessaloniki During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Survey

Burnout syndrome expresses the psychosomatic stress of the employee and the exhaustion of all mental reserves in an effort to adapt to the daily difficulties related to their professional activity. Due to the nature of their work, physiotherapists are a high-risk group for symptoms of burnout. The situation tends to be aggravated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was: (a) the assessment of the levels of burnout during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic of the active physiotherapists working in primary health care and general hospitals of the Prefecture of Thessaloniki, and (b) the identification, both quantitatively and qualitatively, of the existence of burnout among active physiotherapists. The validated questionnaire for the detection of burnout by Maslach and Jackson Burnout Inventory (MBI) and targeted open-ended questions were used to investigate the existence of work-related stress in active physiotherapists during the period March-July 2021 in the city of Thessaloniki. Participants were asked to sign informed consent. The analysis of the epidemiological questionnaire was carried out with the IBM/SPSS Statistics 25 statistical package. The analysis of the semi-structured open-ended questions was carried out with the Statistical Package ATLAS.ti 9 in the Cloud Version.Results Our study concluded that most of the participants had developed moderate to high level of burnout (45%-50%), both in the general hospitals and in primary health care.Conclusions The purpose of the research was to combine quantitative and qualitative data. Based on this correlation, an extremely strong link was found between burnout and depersonalisation.