Background: Burnout syndrome (BO) is a major psychosocial problem caused by chronic stress in the work environment. It is reaching epidemic levels in the medical population. Anesthesiology is among the most stressful medical disciplines which expose to BO. In fact, anesthesia technicians face frequent clinically challenging scenarios, which are an inevitable source of stress. Aims: To identify the prevalence of BO among anesthesia technicians, and its associated factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted for a period of 3 months in 2015 among anesthesia technicians in Farhat Hached Teaching Hospital in the central region of Tunisia. The survey covered all anesthetists in the operating room of gynecologist-obstetrics, visceral surgery, otolaryngology and ophthalmology. Data collection was based on a self-administered questionnaire with validated tools assessing burn-out (Maslach Burnout Inventory) and stress (Siegrist and Karasek). The data were analyzed using SPSS 23.0 software. A descriptive analysis was performed, also univariate analysis was performed calculating p values and OR. The significance level was set at 5%. Results: Among 53 anesthesia technicians from 4 operating rooms, 46 anesthetists completed the survey indicating a response rate of 88%. According to the “Job Content Inventory”, 41% of technicians were in job-strain. Overall, 52.2% anesthetists indicated high levels of emotional exhaustion, 34.8% indicated high levels of depersonalization, and 43.5% showed low personal accomplishment. According to the Siegrist model, 23.9% of cases had an effort/reward imbalance. The results show that 8.7% of participants suffered from high levels of overall BO, while 39.1% experienced medium levels. A rate of 39.1%, 65.2%, and 56.5% of respondents scored in “high” or “moderate” risk of burn out (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment, respectively). The technicians of the operating room of gyneco-obstetrics were most at risk of BO. There was no significant relationship between BO and socio-demographic evaluated characteristics (age, gender, marital status, having children, poor relationship with family members and marital conflicts). Also, none of the occupational evaluated characteristics (work station, more than 20 years of seniority at work, break time at work, the last rest of 2 consecutive days dates back to more than 15 days, number of free weekends in the last 3 months, lack of rest compensator guard post, low social support and high degree of effort and overinvestment) were significantly associated with BO. Conclusions: Our results are in accordance with those of previous studies confirming the high prevalence rate of BO among anesthesia technicians. No significant association, between BO and socio-demographic or occupational characteristics, was found in the present study. In spite of our results, some associated factors to BO should be taken into consideration because of their impact on the well-being of anesthesiologists and the quality of care provided to patients.
