RIVERSIDE – (INT) - In just three years, physician burnout increased from 45.5 percent to 54.4 percent, according to a paper authored by doctors at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine.

“Doctors aren’t depressed or less content at home,” write coauthors Drs. Andrew G. Alexander and Kenneth A. Ballou in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Medicine. “They’re less happy at work.”

Alexander and Ballou list three factors that contribute to physician burnout:
• The doctor-patient relationship has been morphed into an insurance company-client relationship that imposes limitations upon the treatment doctors can provide to the insurance company’s members.
• Feelings of cynicism (resulting from patients no longer expecting continuity of care and routinely changing doctors).
• Lack of enthusiasm for work.

Story Date: September 9, 2018