The Road so Far: Evaluating Wellness, Burnout, and Resiliency Outcomes in Graduate Medical Education

Context: An estimated 63% of family physicians have reported experiencing symptoms of burnout. In 2022, the AAFP, funded by Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), launched an intervention to address burnout, while promoting well-being and resiliency among medical students and family medicine residents through program offerings.

Objective: This presentation details the robust evaluation plan developed to understand the levels of burnout, wellness and resilience and assess changes across different demographics and intersectional identities through the life of the 3-year grant.

Study Design and Analysis: Continuous evaluation of program participants and the 4 main program goals. Using 6 evaluation instruments, interviews, document review, and discussions were included in the ongoing evaluation.

Setting or Dataset American Academy of Family Physicians.

Population Studied: 1321 medical students and family medicine residents from across the country participated at baseline. The program is expected to touch 3,000+ medical students and residents.

Intervention/Instrument: Baseline instruments used: Physician Wellness Inventory, Maslach’s Burnout Inventory, Everyday Discrimination Scale, PHQ-9, Cantril’s Quality of Life Ladder, and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale.

Outcome Measures: Changes/Improvements of program goals.

Results: The AAFP’s BRIDGE program is a 3-year grant with multiple programs running concurrently targeting catering to students or residents. These include Project ECHO® series, book clubs, well-being champion sessions, and online asynchronous webinars. The AAFP’s Continuing Professional Development Division, in collaboration with faculty, created the educational components. The evaluation is conducted by the AAFP’s Practice-Based Research, Evaluation, and Innovation Division (PRIED) and tracks the participants’ changes within each educational component over time. Baseline data prompted the inclusion of suicide awareness and prevention sessions based on the high levels of depression and suicide ideation. The program continues to evolve based on process evaluation findings and recommendations.

Conclusions: The AAFP’s BRIDGE Program is created to promote wellbeing among medical students and family medicine residents. Evaluation is critical to ensure programs like BRIDGE are responsive, and sustainable because they are key to help us understand the scope and impact of burnout as experienced by different demographics.