With more than half of American physicians experiencing burnout, researchers with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., conducted a comprehensive review of research literature to identify effective interventions to address physician burnout, according to a recent study published in The Lancet.
For the review, researchers examined 2,617 articles that dealt with burnout and identified 15 randomized trials involving 716 physicians and 37 cohort studies involving 2,914 physicians.
"We conducted an extensive search and compared the effectiveness of interventions across a range of burnout outcomes," said lead author Colin West, MD, PhD, a physician well-being researcher with Mayo. "It's clear that both individual strategies and structured organizational approaches are effective in achieving clinically meaningful reductions in burnout."
Interventions an individual can participate in to reduce burnout:
• Mindfulness training, which can be achieved through mediation
• Stress management training
• Small group therapy sessions
Interventions at the organizational level that can effectively relieve burnout:
• Limiting physician duty hours
• Changing the care delivery process to make less stressful for physicians
The study's authors wrote, "The literature indicates that both individual-focused and structural or organizational strategies can result in clinically meaningful reductions in burnout among physicians. Further research is needed to establish which interventions are most effective in specific populations, as well as how individual and organizational solutions might be combined to deliver even greater improvements in physician wellbeing than those achieved with individual solutions."
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