A study of the burnout syndrome in medical personnel of a general hospital

INTRODUCTION: We studied the existence of the burnout syndrome, the state of general health and their relation with sociodemographic and work factors in the sanitary personnel of a Spanish general hospital. We established three professional categories A: physicians, B: nurses and technicians of a similar level, C: nurses' aides. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The sample studied includes a total of 363 individuals, both male and female. Of them 102 of category A, 168 of category B and 93 of category C. The instruments used for evaluation were a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (M.B.I.) and the Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire-28 (G.H.G. -28). RESULTS, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The results showed the existence of a middle degree of burnout in the sample studied not related neither with the profesional category nor with the sociodemographic factors studied. Some correlations were found between the burnout degree and general health with seniority, daily leisure time, smoking habits and use of analgesics and tranquillizers. 29.25% of the total sample presented bad general health (23% of group A, 30.7% of group B and 33.3% of group C).