Prevalence of Burnout in Physiotherapists During COVID-19: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and is caused by excessive and prolonged stress related to working conditions. Objective: to assess the prevalence of burnout in physiotherapists during the pandemic COVID-19. Methodology: a computerized search of articles published between December 2019 and July 30, 2021, in the PubMed, Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, and Web of Science databases and in the Google Scholar search engine was conducted to identify studies of burnout in physiotherapists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: 4 studies were included in this review, involving 684 physiotherapists. The studies analysed the number of participants, the characteristics of the sample, the assessment tool, intervention domain, and main outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, physiotherapists exhibited moderate to high rates of burnout symptoms. Conclusion: results suggest that burnout symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic are prominent among physiotherapists working directly with patients. The current results show moderate to high burnout symptom rates, which have increased compared to data published prior to the pandemic. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.