Introduction:

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic status. Several measures were applied, such as the restructuring of primary health care, which led to the accumulation of new functions by professionals, originating in more work-related stress and fatigue, with a consequent predisposition to Burnout syndrome.

Objectives:

Characterize the difficulties of professionals; evaluate the prevalence of Burnout syndrome; correlate the syndrome with sociodemographic and professional variables.

Methods:

A cross-sectional, observational, and descriptive study with an analytical component of primary health care professionals in Portugal, which took place between April and June 2021. Demographic and professional variables were evaluated, as well as the Burnout syndrome through the Maslach Burnout Inventory - Human Services Survey.

Results:

1,434 responses were accepted. Most worked during weekends or holidays and overtime and were allocated to other poles associated with managing the pandemic. A third was not paid for overtime or inconvenient hours and half of the professionals were victims of verbal or physical aggression. Most disagreed that they had enough human resources and half disagreed that they had enough materials. The prevalence of Burnout syndrome was 20.4%. The syndrome and its dimensions were associated with the age of service, sex, region, the number of people enrolled in functional units, physical or verbal aggression, work during weekends or holidays, overtime, and respective non-payment, as well as being allocated to other poles.

Conclusions:

In the present study, there was a higher prevalence of the syndrome compared to previous studies, possibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, corroborated by the associations found.

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