The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an extraordinary amount of stress on physicians and other health professionals. But those elevated levels of stress and burnout are not hitting all equally, according to the results of a national survey of more than 20,000 doctors and others working in health care.
Published in The Lancet open-access journal EClinicalMedicine, “Prevalence and correlates of stress and burnout among U.S. healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A national cross-sectional survey study,” was co-written by researchers from the AMA and Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.
Between May 28 and Oct. 1, 2020, using the AMA Coping with COVID-19 for Caregivers Survey, 42 health care organizations across the U.S. assessed their workers’ stress during the pandemic. The survey of 20,947 physicians and other workers found that 61% of those surveyed felt high fear of exposing themselves or their families to COVID-19 while 38% self-reported experiencing anxiety or depression. Another 43% suffered from work overload and 49% had burnout.
