Risk of Addiction and Burnout

Copotoiu Monica¹, Ioniță Alexandrina², Copotoiu Ruxandra³, Copotoiu Sanda-Maria³

1 Clinic of Rheumatology, Emergency County Hospital, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
2 Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Emergency County Hospital, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
3 Clinic of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Emergency County Hospital, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania

Background: A significant problem in medical practice is represented by addiction to chemical substances and frequently to alcohol. The impact of addiction to alcohol in medical professions is similar to others, although there are slightly different circumstances.
Aim: To compare the rate of dependence to different substances in several medical specialties.
Material and method: We ran a survey based on a questionnaire to assess the level of burnout in connection to the habit of using chronic medication, coffee, alcohol and tobacco. The respondents were our colleagues, 70 doctors of different backgrounds: 28 anaesthesiologists, 27 general surgeons and urologists, 15 gastroenterologists and internists, but also emergency physicians. Data were processed with Graph Pad Prism 5.0.
Results: We found a moderate risk of burnout both in anaesthesiologists and surgeons. Anaesthetists tended to use chronic medication more then their colleagues (20%). As for alcohol use, the surgeons seemed to be placed in pole position (22.22%). The internists styled themselves as no chronic users whatever the item investigated.
Conclusions: Alcohol use and chronic medication were associated frequently to burnout. It is important to clarify if the dependence is a reaction to occupational stress to certain individuals or not. Due to the limited number of respondents, our results do not entitle us to take them as a model.