Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Objectives To explore the prevalence of, and associated factors contributing to burnout among senior doctors and dentists working in the New Zealand's public health system. Design Cross-sectional, mixed methods study. Setting New Zealand's 20 district health boards (DHBs). Participants A total of 1487 of 3740 senior doctors and dentists who are members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists working in DHBs were recruited (response rate 40%). Primary and secondary outcome measures Gender, age, self-rated health status, vocation and hours of work per week were obtained from an electronic questionnaire. Burnout was measured using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. Qualitative data taken from an open-ended comments section was coded using grounded theory and used for contextual data. Results The overall prevalence of high personal burnout was 50%. Women aged 60). Qualitative data emphasised intense and unrelenting workloads, under-staffing, onerous on-call duties and frustrations with management as factors contributing to burnout. Conclusions High burnout appears prevalent in New Zealand's senior doctors and dentists. Many attribute their feelings of burnout to work conditions. These findings may assist with understanding contributors to burnout and with developing strategies to ameliorate the high burnout found across this cohort.
Chambers et al. (Tue,) studied this question.