2016/04/02 by Florent Lheureux, Didier Truchot, Xavier Borteyrou
Health Professions · Medicine · #Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout #Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation #Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
paper · doi:10.1080/02678373.2016.1171806
openalex publication_date 2016/04/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The aim of this article is to analyse further the association of burnout with (poor) physical health, addictive behaviours and suicidal tendency among general practitioners (GPs). Four hypotheses were studied: (H1): burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion, EE, and depersonalization, DP) will be positively associated with suicidal tendency; (H2): will be negatively related to physical health (i.e. large number of physical symptoms and long-lasting impairment); and (H3): positively linked to addictive behaviours (i.e. addiction to alcohol and psychotropic medication) of GPs. Based on the “spiral of losses” depicted by the conservation of resources theory, we also considered whether physical health mediates the relationships of burnout/suicidal tendency and burnout/addictive behaviours (H4). 1890 French GPs completed a questionnaire administered by phone. Information was collected on burnout, three physical health indicators (BMI, number of physical symptoms and lasting physical health problems), four health behaviours (consumption of tobacco, alcohol, anxiolytics and antidepressants) and suicidal tendency (ideation, plan and attempt). Concerning EE, the results supported the hypotheses, except for alcohol consumption. However, the findings showed that DP was associated with more positive outcomes when controlling for exhaustion. The difference in findings for EE and DP are discussed, together with the need for GPs to develop strategies for resilience.