Data from: Age and sex differences in burnout, career satisfaction, and well-being in US neurologists

Objective: To examine age and sex differences in burnout, career
satisfaction, and well-being in US neurologists. Methods: Quantitative and
qualitative analyses of men’s (n = 1,091) and women’s (n = 580) responses
to a 2016 survey of US neurologists. Results: Emotional exhaustion in
neurologists initially increased with age, then started to decrease as
neurologists got older. Depersonalization decreased as neurologists got
older. Fatigue and overall quality of life in neurologists initially
worsened with age, then started to improve as neurologists got older. More
women (64.6%) than men (57.8%) met burnout criteria on univariate
analysis. Women respondents were younger and more likely to work in
academic and employed positions. Sex was not an independent predictive
factor of burnout, fatigue, or overall quality of life after controlling
for age. In both men and women, greater autonomy, meaning in work,
reasonable amount of clerical tasks, and having effective support staff
were associated with lower burnout risk. More hours worked, more nights on
call, higher outpatient volume, and higher percent of time in clinical
practice were associated with higher burnout risk. For women, greater
number of weekends doing hospital rounds was associated with higher
burnout risk. Women neurologists made proportionately more negative
comments than men regarding workload, work–life balance, leadership and
deterioration of professionalism, and demands of productivity eroding the
academic mission. Conclusions: We identified differences in burnout,
career satisfaction, and well-being in neurologists by age and sex. This
may aid in developing strategies to prevent and mitigate burnout and
promote professional fulfillment for different demographic subgroups of
neurologists.