Prevalence and associated risk factors of burnout among US doctors of chiropractic.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to establish the frequency of burnout among doctors of chiropractic in the United States.

METHODS

Using a nonprobability convenience sampling methodology, we e-mailed the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey and a sociodemographic questionnaire to a randomized sample of licensed doctors of chiropractic (n = 8000).

RESULTS

The survey return rate was 16.06%. Twenty-one percent of the participants had high emotional exhaustion (EE), 8% had low personal accomplishment, and 8% had high depersonalization.

DISCUSSION

Significant differences (P < .001) were found in the level of EE, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment as a function of sex, time dedicated to clinical care and administrative duties, source of reimbursement, the type of practice setting, the nature of practitioners' therapeutic focus, the location of chiropractic college, self-perception of burnout, the effect of suffering from a work-related injury, the varying chiropractic philosophical perspectives, and the public's opinion of chiropractic.

CONCLUSION

Although doctors of chiropractic in the United States who responded to the survey had a relatively low frequency of burnout, higher levels of EE remain workplace issues for this professional group.