Professional stress and burnout syndrome during the Covid pandemic in the medical field

Context: The contemporary workplace creates a challenge toward physicians and their teams. They are forced into a situation, in which to be competitive they must have skills outside of their medical specialty, such as health management, pedagogy, and information and communication technologies. Aim: To analyze the level of stress and burnout among the medical employees in the hospital care. Settings and Design: Healthcare professionals from three private, municipal, and regional hospitals filled a questionnaire in the time period January-March 2021. Methods and Material: An adapted Maslach Burnout Inventory 55 question questionnaire was used and analyzed. Statistical Analysis Used: One-way ANOVA, correlation, and multiple regression analysis in SPSS. Results: We identified high levels of emotional exhaustion (>62% report high signs or above), high levels of depersonalization (>70% report signs of depersonalization), and low levels of personal accomplishment (<39% have below average sense of achievements). Conclusions: Despite the physicians and their teams reporting high levels of workload and stress, the satisfaction from work has not diminished and the evaluation for the quality of provided work is still high. Additional research into the topic is required with focus on comparison between hospital physicians and primary care physicians.