Professionalism in Anesthesiology; A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis

Background: It is necessary to identify unidentified or less- concentrated issues inprofessionalism and anesthesiology through an extended study. This study was conducted to identify different dimensions of professionalism in anesthesiology among quantitative and qualitative research. 
Methods: The present meta-synthesis study was done through a systematic review. The main criteria were to use quantitative and qualitative professionalism studies in which their participants were anesthesiologists. All the published and indexed articles related to professionalism in anesthesiology in PubMed and Google Scholar databases from February 2000 to December 2020 were scrutinized. Searching in these databases was done using the keywords “professionalism” and “anesthesiology”. The abstracts were screened for relevance and full articles were located, and 54 articles were selected. Data analysis was performed using qualitative content analysis. 
Results: Generally, concepts extracted from professionalism in the anesthesiology dimension are classified in six main categories including: promoting professionalism, accountability, legal issues, self-regulation, physician well-being threats and social media, as well as 19 sub-categories. 
Conclusion: In this meta-synthesis study, there was an effort to present a new interpretation of the previous studies. This study helped attain a more comprehensive and deeper knowledge about professionalism in anesthesiology and reveal its different aspects which were not assessed in the past. The results revealed issues such as well-being and burnout that need more efforts.