Burnout and perceived family and social support of a cross-section of female senior registrars in the Nigerian residency programme

Abstract

Background- Burnout has been noted to be increasing in prevalence among doctors undergoing residency training, and the female gender is especially vulnerable to burnout. Not many studies have isolated female doctors in residency as subjects for a study on burnout rates and related factors. This study was designed to measure the burnout rate and perceived family and social support among female doctors across residency training programmes in Nigeria.
Methodology- This was a cross-sectional study which used the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) Instrument to assess the burnout rate and the multidimensional scale of perceived social support to assess the perceived support received by the study respondents. Data for a total of 55 respondents was analysed using the 6.2.14, Microsoft Excel 2021 (v16.0)
Results- The study respondents were distributed across 11 residency specialty areas located across Nigeria with an age range of 29- 50 years, an average age of 35.1±3.55 years. Most (89.2%) of the study respondents were married and had been in the residency programme for an average of 3.9±1.41 years. The majority (63.6%) of the study respondents were found to have high burnout, with 32.7% having moderate burnout and 3.7% had low burnout. The exhaustion component was overwhelming (96.35% had high exhaustion) while 100% had low disengagement) in the burnout spectrum. The study respondents perceived that they received the most support from their spouses (94.6%), parents (93.9%), siblings (88.9%) and friends (86.5%) and at the time of the survey, they noted that their most significant source of stress was from coworkers (72%).
Conclusion- There is a need to explore the workplace of Female Doctors in residency to address the factors that increase their vulnerability to stress and subsequently burnout.