Behind closed doors: Are sonographers coping? A literature review of sonographer burnout

With growing recognition of the way occupational health and safety physically impacts, how sonographers perform daily tasks, little research pertaining to the emotional challenges and subsequent burnout faced by sonographers on a daily basis has been undertaken. This narrative literature review aims to investigate the incidence and potential causes of burnout amongst sonographers in order to further explore sonographer well-being. A literature search of medical databases and Google scholar was undertaken to identify articles related to the incidence and causes of sonographer burnout. This review revealed that the prevalence of sonographer burnout is high in Australasia and varied across different populations. Many potential causes of burnout have been postulated within the literature including increased scan numbers or work hours per week, working in hospital settings and chronic exposure to emotionally stressful situations. This review revealed that there is a paucity of published research discussing the incidence and causes of sonographer burnout to date. Further research is needed to investigate this very relevant topic.