Sickness present with signs of burnout: The relationship between burnout and sickness presenteeism among university hospital physicians in four European countries

Abstract

Research has indicated that physicians often report symptoms of burnout and have a high prevalence of sickness presenteeism, yet there are few studies of the relationship between burnout and sickness presenteeism among physicians. The present survey study investigates the association between sickness presenteeism and the two dimensions of burnout, exhaustion and disengagement, when controlling for job resources. A survey was administered both on the web and in paper format among university hospital physicians in four European countries: Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Italy (N = 2078). Sickness presenteeism was positively associated with both exhaustion and disengagement, but explained more of the variance in exhaustion than in disengagement. The results of this study indicate that decreasing the high prevalence of sickness presenteeism may offer a promising avenue for future interventions aimed at reducing burnout among physicians. Although the study confirmed a relationship between burnout and sickness presenteeism, it is argued that the specific link between these two variables needs more attention.