Association between burnout and job-quitting intentions among public health center staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide survey in Japan

Objective The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has imposed considerable stress on public health centers (PHCs) in Japan, raising concerns over staff burnout and intention to quit. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the relationship between burnout and job-quitting intention among PHC staff members and estimated the prevalence of burnout and job-quitting intentions among these staff members.Methods This study employed a cross-sectional design. Survey requests were sent to all 468 PHCs in Japan. For the centers that agreed to participate, we confirmed the number of distributed surveys and conducted them via mail. The prevalence of burnout and job-quitting intentions was calculated after adjusting for age, sex, department, and occupation. The Burnout Scale includes three subscales; exhaustion, cynicism, and efficacy. We calculated descriptive statistics for each burnout subscale and assessed the relationship between burnout and job-quitting intentions using generalized estimating equations.Results We received responses from 23.9% of PHCs (112/468) and 29.3% of staff (1754/5990). Adjusted prevalence was 48.0% (95% confidence interval [CI]; 45.8-50.2%) and 62.2% (95% CI; 59.4-64.9%) for burnout and job-quitting intentions, respectively. Notably, public health nurses demonstrated a pronounced adjusted prevalence of 51.7 (95% CI; 47.2-56.2) and 65.8 (95% CI; 61.7-69.9) for burnout and job-quitting intention, respectively. Of the three burnout domains, only exhaustion (median; 4.40 [interquartile range [IQR]; 3.00-5.80]) had a median score higher than the cut-off value, whereas cynicism (median; 3.40 [IQR; 2.20-5.00]) and efficacy (median; 3.17 [IQR; 2.33-4.33]) had moderate scores. Burnout was a significant predictor of high job-quitting intentions (adjusted relative risk; 1.54, 95% CI; 1.40-1.70).Conclusion The high prevalence of job-quitting intentions among PHC staff highlights the need for interventions to prevent or reduce burnout. Addressing burnout is essential to reduce job-quitting intentions among Japanese PHC staff members.