Work strain and burnout risk in postgraduate trainees in general practice: an overview

ABSTRACT

Primary care physicians (general practitioners (GPs)) are burdened for various reasons and are particularly affected by stress-related complaints and an increasing prevalence of burnout. Thus, the prevention of physician burnout has become a major interest for health care services. Although many studies have addressed this issue in recent years, little seems to be known about the work strain and burnout rates in GP trainees. Therefore the objective of this article is to review the psychosocial burden and relevant prevention strategies for GPs with a special emphasis on GP trainees. Regardless of the specialty, burnout is more prevalent among medical trainees and so-called ‘early career’ physicians than among the age-matched population. Accordingly, burnout seems to be frequent among GP trainees, although there is some evidence that there are fewer doctors working in general medicine who were already heavily burdened at the time of choosing their career. The sudden assumption of responsibility in patient care as well as the fear of showing imperfection in front of their supervisors, or lack of recognition from senior doctors, the medical team, or patients might be stressors typical to this career stage. GP trainees might also feel burdened by the new level of personal involvement and thus have to develop or increase their individual level of professionality to deal with the patients’ medical and personal problems. In conclusion, interventions to promote physical and mental health of GP trainees are a necessity to ensure passionate GPs in the future and should therefore be integrated into any postgraduate training curriculum in general practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health promotion
• general practice trainees
• stress
• burnout

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. med. Martin Cremer for proofreading this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The contents of the paper and the opinions expressed within are those of the authors, and it was the decision of the authors to submit the manuscript for publication.

Reviewer disclosure

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. med. Till Johannes Bugaj is funded by the Physician-Scientist Program of Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine.