RE: Burnout and Commitment to Primary Care: Lessons From the Early Impacts of COVID-19 on the Workplace Stress of Primary Care Practice Teams

  • Matthew J Dressel, Undergraduate, The Ohio State University
  • Other Contributors:
    • Lorraine S Wallace, Associate Professor—College of Medicine, The Ohio State University
11 April 2022

While your study included a relatively small number of primary care professionals from a single northeastern health care system, your findings explicitly portray widespread COVID-19 pandemic challenges faced by this population. I read your study with great interest as I was aware of the widespread concern regarding systemic burnout among healthcare professionals even prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, an emerging literature details that anxiety, stress and burnout affect primary care professionals in not only the United States, but throughout the world.1-3

Given that data collection occurred over an eight-week time period at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (May-July 2020), I am interested in knowing whether your team intends to conduct a follow-up study? Although the qualitative study design did not allow for comparative analyses, I am curious as to whether burnout and commitment to primary care vary across professional roles (e.g., physician versus medical assistant/nurse). Recognizing the sheer length of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am interested in knowing the long-term effects on primary care providers’ anxiety, stress and burnout as a function of professional role and supports in place. As many early COVID-19 safety protocols (e.g., masking) remain in place in clinical settings, I feel that longitudinal studies are warranted to fully understand how primary care teams have continued to adapt and respond to the ongoing pandemic.

References
1. Norful AA, He Y, Rosenfeld A, Abraham CM, Chang B. Mitigating primary care provider burnout with interdisciplinary dyads and shared care delivery. J Eval Clin Pract. 2021; online ahead of print. 10.1111/jep.13642

2. Dominic C, Gopal DP, Sidhu A. 'It's like juggling fire daily': Well-being, workload and burnout in the British NHS—A survey of 721 physicians. Work. 2021;70(2):395-403. 10.3233/WOR-205337

3. Galanis P, Vraka I, Fragkou D, Bilali A, Kaitelidou D. Nurses' burnout and associated risk factors during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Adv Nurs. 2021;77(8):3286-3302. 10.1111/jan.14839

Competing Interests: None declared.
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