Keywords: Family medicine; Occupational burnout; Professional self-care; Physician well-being; Quality of care

Introduction:

Burnout, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic, poorly managed workplace stress. In family medicine, chronic stress leads to increased medical errors, lower patient satisfaction, and high physician turnover. Professional self-care—a multi-dimensional process of purposeful engagement in health-promoting strategies—has been identified as a potential mitigator of burnout. However, there is a significant research gap regarding self-care prevalence and its impact among family physicians (FPs) in Poland. This study aims to assess the correlation between self-care practices and burnout levels in this professional group.

Method:

This nationwide cross-sectional online survey targets Polish FPs and primary care doctors. Participants are recruited via institutional mailing lists of national medical associations. The research instrument consists of three parts: (1) a socio-demographic and practice characteristic questionnaire (including workload and team structure), (2) the Polish version of the Professional Self-Care Scale (PSCS), measuring five domains: professional support, professional development, life balance, cognitive strategies, and daily balance, and (3) the Polish version of the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), assessing personal, work-related, and patient-related burnout.

Results:

The study will map the landscape of self-care practices among Polish FPs and is currently in the data collection phase. Preliminary findings, covering the prevalence of specific self-care practices and their correlation with burnout dimensions (personal, work-related, and patient-related) among the surveyed Polish family physicians, will be finalised and presented during the conference.

Conclusions:

The findings will serve as a basis for developing targeted self-care recommendations to enhance physician well-being and create a systemic strategy to ensure high-quality, safe, and sustainable primary care. This project also provides a methodological framework for a planned multi-centre European comparative study.