Burnout among Anaesthesia Providers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review

Background: Anaesthesia providers are a unique population of healthcare workers because of the specialised nature of their work in the perioperative period. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with its large proportion of Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) has limited manpower and resources. This scoping review was aimed at investigating the prevalence of burnout amongst Anaesthesia providers in SSA from previous research, to identify factors related to burnout, consequences of burnout, and possible interventions to mitigate burnout among SSA anaesthesia providers. Methodology: This is a scoping review of research in the last ten years on burnout amongst SSA anaesthesia providers. Peer-reviewed studies published between the years 2013 to 2023 were included in this study. Google Scholar, Research gate, National Library of Medicine and Web of science databases were searched for eligible studies. Eleven were identified. Results: The synthesized prevalence of burnout was 38.05%. The subscales of high Emotional Exhaustion (EE) of 50.37%, high depersonalisation (DP) 44.05%, and moderately low Personal Accomplishment (PA) of 35.7% were found. Several factors were identified as impacting Anaesthesia providers in SSA such as their years of experience, age of the Anaesthesia provider, and their work environment. Data was limited on the outcomes of burnout, and no studies on the interventions aimed at ameliorating burnout amongst SSA Anaesthesia providers. Conclusion: Findings highlight the need for more research on burnout among SSA anaesthesia providers, and an urgent need for the implementation of interventions to mitigate burnout in SSA anaesthesia providers.