Evaluation of wellness of residents working at Dokuz Eylül University Hospital

Introduction: Health has been defined as not only non-existence of illness but also state of physical, spiritual and social wellness. What state of wellness means is a life –long process which aims to improve physical and phsychological wellness. Residency is a challenging period in a physician's career with many stress factors. Also, it is thought that residents involved in this process have neglected their health and well-being. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the factors that affect the well-being of the residents and state of wellness. Material-Method: It was planned to include all the residents who have been receiving recidency training at Dokuz Eylül University Medical Faculty Hospital in the study. The number, name and units of the residents were reached through Faculty of Medicine' data base. Residents were conducted surveys about the occupational, physical, financial and psycho–social components that are used in the evaluation of state of wellness via face-to face interviews. The factors that might affect the wellness of residents were analyzed. Results: 475 of 553(85.8%) residents were included in the study. Residents who participated in the study described their state of wellness as 35.2% good, 49.2% moderate and 15.6% bad. Single residents, those who work in emergency medicine and surgery, those whose training period is more than 25 months and those who works more shift reported that their state of wellness was worse. (respectively; p=0.026, p<0.001, p=0.030, p<0.001). Majority of residents were satisfied with their department in which they were working(83%). It was discovered that 48% of the residents were considering resignation 61% of them were happy at work, whereas 84% of them were happy out of work. The rate of the residents who had irregular eating habits was 71%. It was learnt that only 18% of them were doing regular exercise 45% of the participants thought that they had health problems related to residency. Residents reported that they smoked, drank and used a substance or at least tried them respectively, 34%, 65% and 18% of the. It was also found out that 69% of them were feeling as burn-out, 10% of them had suicidal tendency and 2% of them had a suicide attempt. Those who described state of wellness as bad were more likely to experience burnout, have the thought of suicide, the attempt of suicide, psychiatric problems, experience physical and verbal violence and to receive professional support and have the thought of being intimidated. Conclusion: Only one third of the residents describe their state of wellness as good. Single residents those who work in the department of emergency medicine and surgery, those ones whose training period is over 25 months, those have more shift, those ones whose eating habits are irregular, those who avoid doing exercise, those who do not have hobbies, those who have psychiatric problems, those who are exposed to violence and those who think that they have experienced intimidation and burn-out described their state of wellness bad. Keywords: Resident, physician, wellness, well-being, survey