Sociodemographic factors in the development of Burnout Syndrome in South and Central American physicians.

Abstract

Objectives: To analyze the prevalence of Burnout Syndrome and identify sociodemographic and extra-occupational factors that influenced the development of this syndrome in medical personnel in Latin American countries during 2009-2020.

Methods: Bibliographic research and a descriptive study approach included 35 articles that consider the Maslach Burnout Index to diagnose BOS. The relationship between the sample size, the prevalence and the corresponding subscales was carried out by means of a correlation analysis.

Results: The presence of both sexes was balanced in most of the studies. Twenty-five studies addressed the relationship of sociodemographic and extra-occupational factors and their relationship with the development of BOS, while 14 of them identified one or more of these factors that were found to be influential or not at the time of diagnosis of the syndrome. The prevalence of BOS ranged from 2.4-83.3 %. There was no correlation between sample size and BOS (p=0.5993); identifying a positive correlation in the prevalence of the three subscales of the MBI, with values of r2 =0.72 between AE and DP (p<0.001); 0.39 for AE and RP (p=0.029), and 0.53 for DP and RP (p=0.002).

Conclusions: Sociodemographic and extra-occupational factors are considered significant in predicting and diagnosing burnout. It is estimated that the factors studied should be linked to the diagnosis of BOS in early stages. Nevertheless, despite not being able to infer causality with these findings, they prove to be a useful basis for research and medical diagnosis in Latin America.