PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A series of reports last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association has highlighted some worrisome research about physicians coping with burnout.
According to the reports, doctors had already been showing signs of burnout before COVID-19 struck, and the emotional experience of the pandemic has had an additional impact. The authors say physicians are now at greater risk than the general population for depression, anxiety, burnout and self-medication with alcohol.
This report focuses on physicians, but research on other professionals in health care fields, including nursing, have returned similar findings.
A major concern is that much of the data is based on self-reporting — indicating that the problem may be even greater than the numbers suggest.
Get more medical reports from Dr. Brian McDonough.
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