Introduction:

Burnout is a syndrome that occurs frequently in health professionals as a response to sources of chronic stress or stressors.

Objective:

To determine the association of working conditions of resident and attending assistants with the prevalence of burnout.

Material and methods:

An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out with 724 physicians. Socio-demographic characteristics and working conditions were questioned. To assess burnout the Maslach inventory was applied. In the analysis X2, odds ratios for prevalence and adjustment according to category were used.

Results:

The prevalence of burnout was 19% in residents and 12% in attending physician, p < 0.01. The risk of presenting burnout was 70% higher in residents than in attending physician and double for those who reported excessive workload and shift works. The emotional exhaustion was almost twice as high in the residents. The main variables associated with the increased risk were working over 56 hours per week, more than 21 patients per day, supervision and excessive burden, and little freedom at work. In the adjustment by categories, the resident women had 71% more risk of burnout.

Conclusions:

Residents had worse working conditions and a higher burnout risk than attending physicians.