Panagioti M, et al. - Authors evaluated if increased risk of patient safety incidents, suboptimal care outcomes due to low professionalism, and lower patient satisfaction are related to physician burnout. Patient care may be jeopardized by physician burnout; across the globe, reversal of this risk has to be viewed as a fundamental health care policy goal. Investment in efforts to improve physician wellness, particularly for early-career physicians, was encouraged by health care organizations. Improvements were required in terms of the methods of recording patient care quality and safety outcomes to concisely capture the outcome of burnout on the performance of health care organizations.

Methods

• Experts searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, and CINAHL databases until October 22, 2017, using combinations of the key terms physicians, burnout, and patient care via detailed standardized searches with no language restriction, and hand-searched the reference lists of eligible studies and other relevant systematic reviews; quantitative observational studies were selected.
• They involved two independent reviewers.
• Subgroup and sensitivity analyses followed the main meta-analysis, and they performed all analyses using random-effects models.
• Researchers performed formal tests for heterogeneity (I²) and publication bias.
• Odds ratios (ORs) with their 95% CIs were documented as the quantitative associations between burnout and patient safety, professionalism, and patient satisfaction reported which were the core outcomes.

Results

• As per data, out of the 5,234 records identified, they included 47 studies on 42,473 physicians (25,059 [59.0%] men; median age, 38 years [range, 27-53 years]) in the meta-analysis.
• Findings suggested an association of physician burnout with an increased risk of patient safety incidents (OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.59-2.40), poorer quality of care due to low professionalism (OR, 2.31; 95% CI, 1.87-2.85), and reduced patient satisfaction (OR, 2.28; 95% CI, 1.42-3.68).
• They noted high heterogeneity and low to moderate study quality.
• In residents and early-career (≤5 years post residency) physicians, the links between burnout and low professionalism were larger vs middle- and late-career physicians (Cohen Q = 7.27; P=.003).
• The main results were significantly influenced by reporting method of patient safety incidents and professionalism (physician-reported vs system-recorded) (Cohen Q = 8.14; P=.007).