Physician assistant burnout and emotional resilience in emergency medicine

Abstract

The physician assistant profession has grown from its original emergence as a strategy to improve family practice and rural healthcare. Rising emergency department visits and the plateau of physicians entering the profession has contributed to a growing number of PA positions in emergency medicine. Currently, emergency medicine is the third largest practice setting, employing 13% of certified PAs. Unfortunately, little is known about the factors contributing to their resilience to remain in a high stress work environment. The literature review in this study is composed of past research on burnout, uncertainty intolerance, and resilience in emergency medicine practitioners. In summary, the comprehensive review suggests that emergency medicine practitioners, including PAs, suffer a high degree of burnout. However, the factors contributing to this burnout differ between physicians and PAs. Self-directedness, persistence, and cooperation are associated with resilience among family medicine practitioners, but there is a lack of research on the personality traits that affect emergency medicine and EMPAs. This thesis proposes a longitudinal cohort study that will investigate burnout, stress resilience, and personality trait patterns among emergency medicine PAs compared to the general PA population. The study will match emergency medicine PAs with general population PAs based on demographics. Data on burnout, stress resilience, and personality dimensions will be analyzed using a chi-square test and Pearson correlation coefficient to elucidate any differences. The proposed research is meant to better understand and prevent the burnout syndrome, which is associated with negative patient outcomes, higher healthcare costs, and serious mental health strain