Revisiting burnout and job satisfaction among oncologists: A critical appraisal

Dear Sir,We have read the original article entitled “Burnout and job satisfaction among oncologists” by Nasreen et al., published October issue of your journal. We want to congratulate the authors on this informative article. However, we want some clarification regarding methodology and results section. The methodology section lacks sample size and sampling techniques. The use of the validated Oldenburg burnout inventory questionnaire to measure burnout among oncologists increased the internal validity of the results. It would have been better if they had mentioned the interpretation of the scoring; specifically, how they have classified two subscales of burnout- “disengagement and exhaustion levels” into high and medium. It would help them report the rate of occurrence of burnout since it was their primary objective of the study. Another point we want to highlight is that the job satisfaction part mentioned in the title was missing in the results section. Incorporating this part in their analysis could give us more ideas about the association between burnout and job satisfaction. The statistical evidence supporting higher exhaustion among residents and technologists could be elaborated further, as it is not clearly reflected in the tables. In multivariable analysis through binary logistic regression, important variables like “working as” were missing, although it showed a significant association in bivariable analysis. We think inclusion of such variables showing trends toward association could have strengthened the model. However, we sincerely appreciate the authors for addressing such a relevant and overlooked issue among oncologists.