Burnout among pharmacists.

A nationwide mail survey of a random sample of the American Pharmaceutical Association membership was conducted to study the degree of burnout among pharmacists and to identify individual and job characteristics that make a pharmacist susceptible to burnout. Analysis of 1,261 returned questionnaires (57.1% response rate) revealed moderate levels of burnout among pharmacists. The study found that the typical pharmacist who reported the highest level of burnout was a woman less than 40 years old, who works in a chain community pharmacy setting, and who has been in practice and in the same job for less than 10 years. Further work is needed to identify other personal and practice conditions that make pharmacists susceptible to burnout. In the meantime, employees are encouraged to establish interpersonal communications designed to identify and deal with signs of burnout.