Can professional coaching improve physicians’ well-being and reduce burnout and psychological distress? And can it help them maintain resilience, professional satisfaction, and quality of life even within a demanding and draining reality?
This systematic review sought to investigate whether professional coaching, delivered by trained coaches, could offer a meaningful response to the growing challenge of burnout and distress among physicians. To this end, the researchers searched five scientific databases and identified 14 studies that included 1,099 physicians and medical trainees. The studies examined a wide range of outcomes, including psychological well-being, burnout, distress, resilience, quality of life, job satisfaction, and professional fulfillment. Five of them were randomized controlled trials, alongside non-randomized studies, before-and-after studies, mixed-methods studies, and one qualitative study. Because of the differences among the studies and among the outcome measures, a meta-analysis could not be performed.
The findings showed that all quantitative studies reported improvement in at least one of the well-being measures examined following coaching. The evidence from the randomized controlled trials indicates improvement in psychological well-being and reductions in distress and burnout. In addition, improvements were found in measures such as quality of life, psychological resilience, job satisfaction, work engagement, psychological capability, and professional fulfillment. However, most of the non-randomized studies were at moderate or high risk of bias, and differences among the research methods and outcome measures limited the possibility of drawing broad conclusions.
The researchers conclude that professional coaching may improve physicians’ well-being and reduce distress and burnout. However, they emphasize that additional high-quality studies are needed, using standardized outcome measures and consistent reporting, in order to strengthen the evidence base in the field.
Citation:
Boet, Sylvain, Cole Etherington, Pierre-Marc Dion, Chloé Desjardins, Manvinder Kaur, Valentina Ly, Manon Denis-LeBlanc, Cecile Andreas, and Abi Sriharan. 2023. Impact of Coaching on Physician Wellness: A Systematic Review. PLOS ONE 18 (2): e0281406. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281406