COVID-19 pandemic burnout in an Italian sample of anaesthesiologists: coping strategies, resilience and the capability of tolerating the uncertainty as preventing factors

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to explore the prevalence of burnout characteristics and their association with resilience, coping strategies, and the intolerance of uncertainty dimensions. It also aims to explore the predictive effect of these variables on burnout dimensions, separately. Through the SurveyMonkey platform, 1,009 anaesthesiologists completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Resilience Scale, Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form (IU), and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). According to the MBI cut-off, 39.7% and 25.8% of participants scored high in Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization, respectively, and 44.2% scored low in Personal Accomplishment. Several significant correlations between burnout dimensions and resilience, coping strategies, and the intolerance of uncertainty emerged. Regarding the linear regression models tested, coping strategies, resilience, and age showed a significant predictive effect on all three of the burnout dimensions. In conclusion, the results showed that individual levels of resilience and one’s ability to tolerate uncertainty and task-oriented coping strategies represent significant factors for lower burnout levels in Italian anaesthesiologists during COVID-19 pandemic. These findings highlight the importance of intervention aimed at promoting useful coping strategies and enhancing resilience among healthcare workers.

KEYWORDS:

• Anaesthesiologists
• burnout syndrome
• COVID-19
• coping strategies
• resilience
• intolerance of uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [MDT].

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology of the University of Roma ‘Sapienza’.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors