Burnout among Healthcare Providers of COVID-19; a Sys-tematic Review of Epidemiology and Recommendations

In the current systematic review, we intended to systematically review the epidemiology ofburnout and the strategies and recommendations to prevent or reduce it among healthcare providers (HCPs)of COVID-19 wards, so that policymakers can make more appropriate decisions.

MEDLINE (accessedfrom PubMed), Science Direct, and Scopus electronic databases were systematically searched in English fromDecember 01, 2019 to August 15, 2020, using MESH terms and related keywords. After reading the title andthe abstract, unrelated studies were excluded. The full texts of the studies were evaluated by authors, indepen-dently, and the quality of the studies was determined. Then, the data were extracted and reported.

12studies were included. Five studies investigated the risks factors associated with burnout; none could establisha causal relationship because of their methodology. No study examined any intervention to prevent or reduceburnout, and the provided recommendations were based on the authors’ experiences and opinions. None of thestudies followed up the participants, and all assessments were done according to the participants’ self-reportingand declaration. Assessing burnout in the HCPs working in the frontline wards was performed in four studies;others evaluated burnout among all HCPs working in the regular and frontline wards.

Paying at-tention to the mental health issues, reducing the workload of HCPs through adjusting their work shifts, reducingjob-related stressors, and creating a healthy work environment may prevent or reduce the burnout.