Burnout among US family physicians is around 44% and is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of switching jobs or leaving practice altogether. That trend could lead to lower care satisfaction and increased spending for patients, as well as have substantial financial consequences for health care organizations, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
For the cross-sectional analysis, researchers led by a team from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City examined survey responses from 19,929 family physicians collected from 2016 to 2020 American Board of Family Medicine surveys and used Medicare data to track whether physicians later switched practices or left medicine.
When physicians reported “I feel burned out from my work” or “I have become more callous toward people” at least once a week, the researchers defined them as experiencing burnout.
Burnout more common in women, younger docs
Overall, 43.5% of family physicians reported burnout. Those physicians were more likely to either change practices or stop practicing medicine altogether in the following year compared with those who did not report burnout.
Specifically, 4.8% of physicians with burnout switched practices, compared with 3.4% of those without burnout, while 5.4% left practice entirely. versus 3.7% of their non-burned-out peers. Burnout was more commonly reported among physicians younger than 55 years, those employed in nonrural areas, and among women.
The findings suggest that burnout may play a meaningful role in workforce turnover and in physicians leaving clinical practice altogether. Previous research has suggested that losing a primary care physician can disrupt continuity of care, worsen a patient’s experience of care, and increase emergency department use. It can also drive up costs for patients and health care organizations.
Physician burnout ‘warrants sustained attention’
To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first national-level analysis to look at the relationship between burnout and turnover among family physicians. And while the study can’t establish causality and the design had some limitations, including the use of surveys that preceded the COVID pandemic, the findings are consistent with previous estimates linking physician burnout and turnover rates.
“These findings suggest that physician burnout warrants sustained attention, not only because of its adverse relationship with professional well-being and patient safety but also because it compromises the physician workforce stability,” the authors write.
These findings highlight the urgent need to address work conditions and professional satisfaction.
“These findings highlight the urgent need to address work conditions and professional satisfaction for both the stability of the physician workforce and the well-being of patients,” said Dhruv Khullar, MD, associate professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and first author of the study, in a Weill Cornell Medicine news release.
