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Articles

Burnout, empathy and their relationships: a qualitative study with residents in General Medicine

, , , , &
Pages 354-361 | Received 15 Jan 2015, Accepted 19 May 2015, Published online: 15 Jun 2015
 

Abstract

Some studies have shown that burnout may have a negative impact on clinical empathy during internship. However, clinical empathy may also be a protective factor, preventing residents from experiencing burnout. Although several quantitative studies have been conducted to examine these relationships between burnout and empathy, no qualitative studies have been carried out. To examine how residents in general practice evaluate the link between burnout and empathy, 24 of them participated in a semi-structured interview. A thematic analysis was carried out to examine residents’ discourses and answers to closed questions. The results indicated that residents thought that empathy and burnout were clearly related in different ways. They identified five types of relationship: regulation strategy, empathy as protection, psychological balance/imbalance, fatigue and moderating factors.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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