Burnout is worse for women health care workers

• Women account for about 3 in 4 health care jobs in the United States.

What they did: George Washington University researchers reviewed 71 studies — from across 26 countries over more than four decades — on the wellbeing of women working as physicians, clinical social workers and mental health providers.

What they found: Lack of control over work and family caregiving responsibilities that often fall on women both appeared in about a quarter of studies as factors directly harming women health care workers' wellbeing.

• Gender inequality was also a major factor. For instance, several studies cite fewer opportunities for women to advance in their health care careers compared with men with similar qualifications as a cause of burnout.
• The analysis, published in Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, also found that women expend more emotional energy than men to care for patients with complex medical problems.