Physician Burnout, Resilience, and Patient Experience in a Community Practice: Correlations and the Central Role of Activation

• Main Authors: Thomas G Howell MD, Deirdre E Mylod PhD, Thomas H Lee MD, MSc, Tait Shanafelt MD, Pam Prissel MS, LCSW
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-12-01
• Series: Journal of Patient Experience
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373519888343
• ISSN: 2374-3735; 2374-3743

Clinician burnout and patient experience are important issues that are often considered separately. New measures of resilience may influence both. We explored relationships among clinician resilience, burnout, and patient experience. Analysis included 490 physicians who completed surveys measuring burnout and resilience (decompression and activation) and had at least 30 patient experience surveys available for analysis. Burnout was measured with 2 items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) which were part of the organization’s ongoing measurement of clinician experience. Resilience was measured with 8 items from 2 Press Ganey validated subscales related to clinicians’ ability to decompress from work and their experience of feeling of activation and connection to purpose while at work. Clinicians reporting more frequent symptoms of burnout based on the MBI items reported less ability to decompress ( r for individual measures ranged from −.183 to −.475, P < .01) and less feeling of activation ( r for individual measures ranged from −.116 to −.401, P < .01). Individual elements of decompression and activation were significantly associated with patient experience. In terms of activation, feeling that one’s work makes a difference ( r ranged from .121 to .159, P < .05) and believing one’s work to be meaningful ( r ranged from .102 to .135, P < .05) were positively associated with patient experience with their care provider. However, elements of decompression such as being able to free one’s mind from work ( r ranged from −.092 to −.119, P < .05) and being able to disconnect from work communications such as e-mails ( r ranged from −.094 to −.130, P < .05) were negatively associated with patient experience with their care providers. Patient and provider experience are intertwined in that clinician resilience is associated with both burnout and patient experience, but individual mechanisms of resilience may be beneficial for the clinician but not for the patient.