Burnout and Work Satisfaction in General Practitioners Practicing in Rural Areas: Results from the HaMEdSi Study

Background: An increasing number of general practitioners (GPs) are not satisfied with their working conditions and are at risk of developing burnout symptoms. As family medicine is becoming a major subject within the medical curriculum in Germany, practicing GPs need to meet higher demands in the future, ie, treating patients and taking part in the education of medical students. Accordingly, we aimed to determine GPs' work satisfaction and risk of burnout.

Materials And Methods: A survey was conducted among GPs in the region of Siegen-Wittgenstein. This area is a representative rural region in Germany. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to assess the risk of burnout, while the Work Satisfaction Questionnaire (WSQ) was applied to assess work satisfaction. Canonical correlations were used to examine the association between work satisfaction and burnout in GPs.

Results: A good model fit was demonstrated for both the MBI and the WSQ. The canonical correlation analysis resulted in two statistically significant canonical functions with correlations of 0.64 (<0.001) and 0.56 (=0.001). The full model across all functions was significant (χ [18]=72.41, <0.001). Burden and the global item in the WSQ are good predictors of emotional exhaustion, while patient care, personal rewards and professional relations seem to be good predictors of depersonalization/lack of empathy. This supports the approach to burnout as a multidimensional construct which has to be thoroughly diagnosed.

Conclusion: Differential interventions tailored to GPs with specific deficits in certain areas should be delivered. GPs with a high score on emotional exhaustion would need a different intervention, as these respondents have different associations with work satisfaction than do GPs with a high score for depersonalization/low empathy. Therefore, the results of this study could contribute to the design of differential interventions aimed at ameliorating symptoms of burnout in GPs.