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The prevalence of burnout in oncology professionals: an overview of systematic reviews with meta-analyses including more than 90 distinct studies

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Abstract

Purpose

This overview of reviews aimed to summarize the prevalence of burnout and the dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment) in oncology professionals around the world.

Methods

The CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, and PubMed databases were searched from inception to September 13, 2023. AMSTAR 2 was used to assess the quality of reviews. The overlap between reviews was calculated.

Results

Twelve reviews were included. Overall, reviews showed that burnout was prevalent in oncologists and oncology nurses. On the other hand, no reviews meta-analyzed the prevalence of burnout in oncology radiation therapists. In addition, the dimensions of burnout, high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment were highly prevalent across reviews in oncologists, oncology nurses, and oncology radiation therapists. In oncologists, the Americas (specifically Canada) showed the highest prevalence rates for high emotional exhaustion, whereas high depersonalization and low personal accomplishment were mainly prevalent in Europe and Asia, respectively. In oncology nurses, high emotional exhaustion and high depersonalization were mainly prevalent in Asia, whereas low personal accomplishment was more prevalent in the Americas (specifically Canada). The prevalence of overall levels of burnout was not meta-analyzed by continents.

Conclusion

Some methodological improvements may help to make more robust the findings of this overview (e.g., specific subgroup meta-analyses by oncology specialties), which may help readers reach more precise, direct, and consistent findings.

Protocol registration

https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/QPWG5.

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Data availability

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or are available as supplementary files.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Fisioterapia, Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla, Universidad de Sevilla, Calle Avenzoar, 6, 41009, Seville, IBiS, Seville, Spain

    Javier Martinez-Calderon & Maria Jesus Casuso-Holgado

  2. CTS 1110: Understanding Movement and Self in Health From Science (UMSS) Research Group, Andalusia, Spain

    Javier Martinez-Calderon, Marta Infante-Cano, Maria Jesus Casuso-Holgado & Cristina García-Muñoz

  3. Departamento de Ciencias de La Salud y Biomédicas, Universidad Loyola de Andalucía, Seville, Spain

    Cristina García-Muñoz

Authors
  1. Javier Martinez-Calderon
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  3. Maria Jesus Casuso-Holgado
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  4. Cristina García-Muñoz
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Contributions

Conceptualization: JMC, data curation: JMC, formal analysis: all authors, funding acquisition: not applicable, investigation: not applicable, methodology: all authors, project administration: JMC, resources: not applicable, software: CGM, supervision: JMC, validation: not applicable, visualization: not applicable, writing—original draft: JMC, writing—review and editing: all authors.

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Correspondence to Javier Martinez-Calderon.

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Martinez-Calderon, J., Infante-Cano, M., Casuso-Holgado, M.J. et al. The prevalence of burnout in oncology professionals: an overview of systematic reviews with meta-analyses including more than 90 distinct studies. Support Care Cancer 32, 196 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-024-08400-x

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