[Residents, duties and burnout syndrome].

Objectives: To investigate the degree of burnout among resident physicians of a university hospital and the factors associated with it.

Materials And Methods: Maslach burnout Inventory (MBI) was sent to all residents, which assesses emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Burnout exists when high degree of emotional exhaustion or depersonalization are obtained. Several variables were analyzed (age, sex, nationality, year of residency, speciality, total monthly calls and in emergency departments, days since last call, duty-free day after calls, position at calls). It's relationship with the score on the different dimensions of MBI and burnout was analyzed through the test of the chi-square, whereas the association between scores of MBI and the number of calls were analyzed using linear regression.

Results: 132 of 290 residents answered (45.5%): 40.2% had a high emotional exhaustion and a 64.4% presented depersonalization. In total, 69.7% of the residents had burnout. There was no statistically association between the epidemiological variables and the different dimensions of the MBI. The total number of calls per month were significantly associated with emotional exhaustion (p<0.05). There wasn't any relation to the number of calls in emergency departments. Resident physicians who had 5 or more calls per month showed burnout more often than the rest (76.6% versus 60.0%, p<0.05). A trend towards a higher burnout was present among residents of Internal medicine and medical specialities than the rest (75.6% versus 60.0%, p=0.05).

Conclusions: The prevalence of burnout among the group of residents is high and relates mainly to the monthly number of calls.