Burnout Syndrome in Emergency Physicians in Venezuela Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Burnout syndrome is a clinical entity that can negatively affect healthcare workers, especially frontline medical staff. Objective: Determine the prevalence of burnout in emergency physicians at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The Maslach Burnout Inventory was administered to 150 emergency physicians in 2020 during the first months of the pandemic in a Venezuelan hospital. There are two limitations, the size of sample is small and the study physicians have poor social conditions that do not allow generalizing the results. Results: Over three quarters of the physicians surveyed (76.7%) experienced burnout and 55.3% had health problems due to stress. The higher the number of years working in the hospital and/or the lower the job satisfaction, the higher the burnout rate (p<0.05). Conclusion: A large number of physicians in Venezuela experienced burnout during the first months of the pandemic, but half of them believed they did not need psychological help. Prevalence of burnout was high among physicians with more years of service and among those with lower job satisfaction.