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B
urnout
syndrome
prevalence
in
physiotherapists
R
ev
A
ssoc
M
ed
B
ras
2017; 63(4):361-365
365
to more than 20 patients per day have the highest levels
of EE, Dp and BOS. Both EE and Dp dimensions present
moderate levels and BOS presents high levels. LPA is
lower in those who attend to less than 20 patients per day,
showing moderate levels. This is in accordance with re-
viewed authors such as Atance Martínez
14
and another
study carried out in The Madrid Regional Rehabilitation
Service.
15
In the latter, BOS is associated to excess of work.
These results differ from those obtained by Castro Sánchez
et al.
13
in a sample of 46 physiotherapists from a health
service in the Andalucía region where a significant relation
between BOS and the number of daily treated patients
was noted.
Finally, in our study, EE is high in physiotherapists
who work in private practice. Dp is moderate in those who
have both, private and public practice. LPA is low in those
who work in private practice. Burnout syndrome levels
are high in those who work both (private and public).
There are very few studies in this field. If we compare our
results with those obtained by other authors, such as
Schuster et al.
7
or Serrano Gisbert et al.,
6
our results would
not be in accordance with them. The relation between the
number of working hours per week and the kind of work
day shows that more than half of the physiotherapists
who work split shifts work more than 38.5 hours per week.
Conversely, most of those who work on consecutive days
carry out less than 38.5 hours per week.
We have not found any studies regarding work day in
respect to public or private practice performance. How-
ever, with our results, we can affirm that more than half of
the physiotherapists who have participated in the study
work in private practice and, since physiotherapy is a health-
care profession, it is in the private sector that assistance
time is higher and better adapted to the type of patients.
Both who work more than 38.5 hours a week and who
work less than 38.5 hours a week do not present differ-
ences in the number of hours of direct care to patients or
their relatives. In both groups, more than half of the par-
ticipants dedicate between 21 to 40 hours per week to it.
Regarding these data, we can establish that more than 50%
of a physiotherapist’s working day is dedicated to direct
attention, thus taking time that could be dedicated to
other important activities such as study, research and train-
ing. These results are in accordance with the research done
by Schuster et al.,
7
who affirm that factors such as excess
of activity represent negative prediction variables towards
work, thus making health professionals very frequently a
risk group for this kind of disturbance development.
We must point out that more than half of the phys-
iotherapists who work in private practice do it for over
38.5 hours per week; and more than half of those who work
in public practice do it for less than 38.5 hours per week.
This is so because, in Spain, the public sector’s working
week never exceeds 35 hours.
C
onclusion
Physiotherapists from the Extremadura region have a BOS
level of 65.23 points, according to the MBI questionnaire.
A high burden of care, whether considering the num-
ber of patients or the number of hours of direct care),
raises the scores of EE and Dp. The total number of hours
is reflected in the total. Typically, in the private sector,
starting day is associated with a high score in LPA.
No relation between BOS and age has been found in
our study.
C
onflict
of
interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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