Work–Life Balance Among Medical Professionals in Indian Corporate Hospitals: A Systematic Review of Global Evidence, Evolving Dimensions, and Emerging Research Priorities

ABSTRACTBackground: The erosion of work–life balance (WLB) among medical professionals hasemerged as one of the most consequential and under-addressed challenges in contemporaryhealthcare management. Despite a growing international evidence base on physician burnout andoccupational distress, the literature remains methodologically fragmented and geographicallyconcentrated. Most notably, India's rapidly expanding corporate hospital sector now the primaryemployer of specialist physicians in urban India has attracted virtually no scholarly attention inthe peer-reviewed WLB literature.Objective: This systematic review synthesises peer-reviewed evidence published between 2015and 2024 on WLB among medical professionals. It aims to map the determinants andconsequences of WLB deficits in global healthcare contexts, identify consistent patterns acrossdemographic and geographic subgroups, and articulate the critical research gaps that remainunaddressed with particular emphasis on specialist physicians in Indian corporate hospitals.Methods: A PRISMA-aligned systematic search was conducted across PubMed/MEDLINE,Scopus, Google Scholar, and EBSCO using structured Boolean queries. Forty-three studiespublished between 2015 and 2024 were selected through a two-stage screening and qualityappraisal process using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) and AMSTAR-2 checklist.Data were extracted into a standardised matrix and synthesised through iterative thematicanalysis.