Physicians’ QOL 2015
Burnout and Happiness in Physicians 2015
- Quality of life (QOL) became one of dominant issues of the new millenium medical literature. The term "quality of life" appeared only six times as a title word of a PubMed listed article in nineteen-sixties, 185 times in seventies, 917 times in eighties and 5800 times in nineties. The frequency 19 000 in the period 2000—2009 means the average of 1900 articles on QOL per year with number having increased four times from 2000 (1147) to 2014 (4552). Of course, without any doubt the subject is "patients’ quality-of-life", that is what physicians are interested in.
- But what about "physicians’ quality-of-life"? According to the report published in Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012 the prevalence of burnout is much higher among US physicians than in other professions. Recently, in the article published on Medscape, Carol Peckham states that the physicians’ quality-of-life is getting even worse, of course with considerable differences among particular medical specialties.
- As expected, dermatologists suffer burnout much less than critical care professionals (37% vs 51%, respectively). However, emergency professions are closely followed by family practitioners and internists, what may seem rather surprising. At the tail of the peloton the dermatologists are just one per cent behind psychiatrists (38%) and four per cent behind gastroenterologists (41%).
- You may also find interesting e.g. physicians’ favourite pastimes (physical activity > 60%, but golf only 12%) or how the burnout rate is related to vacation time, physical activity, BMI, alcohol or marijuana use, savings/debts, religion or marital status.
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