Six factors in particular are driving physicians' high burnout rates, and they existed well before the pandemic's onset, according to Paul DeChant, MD.
Dr. DeChant, a healthcare consultant who co-wrote a book on physician burnout, discussed the issue's rise in a Sept. 13 episode of the American Medical Association's podcast, "AMA Update."
Dr. DeChant pointed to six factors — originally identified by Christina Maslach, PhD, a social psychologist and researcher at the University of California Berkeley — that the pandemic has compounded, influencing the rise in burnout.
The factors she outlined:
1. Work overload
2. Lack of control
3. Insufficient rewards
4. Breakdown of community
5. Sense of unfairness
6. Conflicting values