Burnout among Male Physicians: A Controlled Study on Pathological Personality Traits and Facets

Abstract

There is a high prevalence of job burnout in physicians, impacting both the professional and personal levels. This study aimed to investigate whether physicians with burnout show specific pathological traits and facets of their personalities compared with healthy controls, according to the dimensional personality models in the ICD-11 and DSM-5. The role of perceived stress, anxiety, and depression were exploratively investigated regarding group differences. Male physicians (n = 60) were recruited into two groups (burnout vs. healthy). The Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 Brief Form Plus (PID5BF+) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) were applied. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test (WRS) showed group differences in five of the six traits and in six of the seventeen facets of the PID5BF+. Multiple binary logistic regression, controlling for age, showed that deceitfulness (3.34 (1.36–9.35), p = 0.013) and impulsivity (10.20 (2.4–61.46), p = 0.004) significantly predicted burnout. Moreover, the WRS showed significant group differences in perceived stress, depressive, and anxiety symptoms (all p < 0.00)]. The findings suggest a relationship between pathological personality facets and burnout in a sample of male physicians. In particular, the facets of deceitfulness and impulsivity appear to play an important role. Furthermore, burnout showed well-known associations with perceived stress, depressive, and anxiety symptoms.