Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Aug 28, 2022; 10(4): 206-219
Published online Aug 28, 2022. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v10.i4.206
No increase in burnout in health care workers during the initial COVID-19 outbreak: Systematic review and meta-analysis
Vincent Kimpe, Michel Sabe, Othman Sentissi
Vincent Kimpe, Faculty of Medicine, Geneva University, Geneva 1208, Geneva, Switzerland
Michel Sabe, Othman Sentissi, Division of Adult Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva 1205, Geneva, Switzerland
Author contributions: Kimpe V helped to develop the research question, performed the review, and wrote the main part of the manuscript; Sabe M participated in the development of the research question, helped with the meta-analysis strategy and contributed to the writing of the manuscript; Sentissi O developed the research question, oversaw the progress of the review, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. The authors approved the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Othman Sentissi has received advisory board honouraria from Otsuka, Lilly, Lundbeck, Sandoz, and Janssen in an institutional account for research and teaching. Other authors have no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Othman Sentissi, MD, PhD, Chief Doctor, Division of Adult Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals, CAPPI Jonction: 35, rue des Bains, Geneva 1205, Switzerland. o.sentissi@hcuge.ch
Received: March 27, 2022
Peer-review started: March 27, 2022
First decision: June 11, 2022
Revised: July 27, 2022
Article in press: July 27, 2022
Published online: August 28, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND

For decades and before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, for health care workers (HCWs) burnout can be experienced as an upsetting confrontation with their self and the result of a complex a multifactorial process interacting with environmental and personal features.

AIM

To literature review and meta-analysis was to obtain a comprehensive understanding of burnout and work-related stress in health care workers around the world during the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

We performed a database search of Embase, Google Scholar and PubMed from June to October 2020. We analysed burnout risk factors and protective factors in included studies published in peer-reviewed journals as of January 2020, studying a HCW population during the first COVID-19 wave without any geographic restrictions. Furthermore, we performed a meta-analysis to determine overall burnout levels. We studied the main risk factors and protective factors related to burnout and stress at the individual, institutional and regional levels.

RESULTS

Forty-one studies were included in our final review sample. Most were cross-sectional, observational studies with data collection windows during the first wave of the COVID-19 surge. Of those forty-one, twelve studies were included in the meta-analysis. Of the 27907 health care professionals who participated in the reviewed studies, 70.4% were women, and two-thirds were either married or living together. The most represented age category was 31-45 years, at 41.5%. Approximately half of the sample comprised nurses (47.6%), and 44.4% were working in COVID-19 wards (intensive care unit, emergency room and dedicated internal medicine wards). Indeed, exposure to the virus was not a leading factor for burnout. Our meta-analytic estimate of burnout prevalence in the HCW population for a sample of 6784 individuals was 30.05%.

CONCLUSION

There was a significant prevalence of burnout in HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of the associated risk factors could be targeted for intervention, both at the individual and organizational levels. Nevertheless, COVID-19 exposure was not a leading factor for burnout, as burnout levels were not notably higher than pre-COVID-19 levels.

Keywords: Burnout, Initial COVID-19 outbreak, SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Healthcare workers, Mental health services, Maslach burnout inventory

Core Tip: We performed a database search from June to October 2020. We analysed burnout risk factors and protective factors in retained studies and performed a meta-analysis to determine overall burnout levels during the initial coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. We found a significant prevalence of burnout in health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and some of the associated risk factors could be targeted for intervention, both at the individual and organizational level. Nevertheless, COVID-19 exposure was not a leading factor for burnout, as burnout levels were not notably higher than pre-COVID-19.