Specialist physicians battle against the COVID-19 pandemic: the relationship between specialist physicians working conditions and levels of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract. – OBJECTIVE: This study was planned to determine the burnout levels of physi- cians during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to con- tribute to taking the necessary measures by de- termining the associated factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This research was designed via Google Online Form as an on- line survey with questions of Sociodemograph- ic Data Form, Maslach Burnout Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory and was conducted with 40 specialist physicians actively working at the Sakarya University Training and Research Hos- pital. The same questionnaire was re-applied online after two months, and 24 out of 40 phy- sicians were accessed. The SPSS 25 (IBM, Ar- monk, NY, USA) program was used for the anal- ysis of the data. RESULTS: According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory applied in the pre-test, it was found that the feeling of personal accomplishment was high, emotional burnout was normal, and deper- sonalization was low. Anxiety and burnout were found to be positively correlated, and there were no statistically significant differences in the av- erage values of the pre-and post-test Maslach Burnout Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory scores. CONCLUSIONS: Detecting possible burnout in physicians working in a pandemic, identify- ing associated factors and taking required mea- sures can be beneficial both for physicians and society from a biopsychosocial perspective.