Burnout syndrome among obstetricians and gynecologists.

Objective: The aim of this study is to identify the degree of burnout Syndrome (BS). among the obstetricians and gynecologists working in different hospitals in Saudi Arabia, with different job titles.

Study design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

Methods: It is a descriptive cross-sectional study for which approval was obtained by the Institutional Review Board of Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The standardized Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) scale was used to collect the data.

Results: The study was conducted on a total of 194 obstetricians and gynecologists including 20.1%(n=39) males and 79.9%(n=155) females in the different provinces of Saudi Arabia. The burnout syndrome in the Western province was seen in 11.9% (n=23), In the Eastern province, it was 49.5%(n=96), in the North region it was 6.7%(n=13), in the South it was 5.1%(n=10) and in the Middle region, it was seen in 26.8%(n=52). The ages of participants range from 24-41 years and the mean age was 35.5 years with SD ±2.5 years. It was seen that burnout in governmental hospital employees was  85.1% (n=165)and in private hospitals, it was 14.9% (n=29). The level of work burnout syndrome was 38.1% (n=74) among consultants,25.3%(n=49) in specialists, and 36.6% (n=71) in the residents of different years of training. Cornabacks alpha was calculated to be 0.821 for the reliability of the MBI. There was statistically significant differences regarding job titles. Emotional exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP ), and Personal achievements scores ( PA) were calculated and comparison was tabulated.

Conclusion: BS is very common among obstetricians and gynecologists. Different measures need to be taken into consideration and implementation to avoid these mental health issues to save the drainage of intellectuals.