Surgical Resident Burnout and Job Satisfaction: The Role of Workplace Climate and Perceived Support

Surgical residents train under immense stress, often manifesting into poor well-being. While recent research identifies methods of coping with stress, few studies empirically investigate the role of the environment on surgical resident well-being. We aimed to assess surgical resident perceptions of workplace climate, organizational support, burnout, and job satisfaction to test a mediation model identifying antecedents to well-being. A convenience sampling of program directors from general surgery within the Eastern region of the United States were emailed to request either agenda time to collection data via paper survey or to forward an electronic survey link to their residents between March 2016 and June 2016. The survey included scales demonstrating validity evidence on well-being, climate, and perceptions of support. Based on 160 general surgery residents (out of 557; 29% response rate) across 19 training programs, our mediation model found that job satisfaction was significantly predicted by workplace climate directly (direct effect = 0.37, 95% CI [0.19, 0.55]) and indirectly (specific indirect effect = 0.07, 95% CI [0.01, 0.13]) through perceived organizational support and burnout, while controlling for training year and gender, F(5,147) = 53.76, P