Burnout (psychology)

Template:Otheruses4 Template:DiseaseDisorder infobox Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (depersonalization or cynicism), usually in the work context. It is also used as an English slang term to mean exhaustion. Burnout is often construed as the result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery, but it is sometimes argued that workers with particular personality traits (especially neuroticism) are more prone to experiencing burnout. Further, it appears that researchers disagree about the nature of burnout. While many researchers argue that burnout refers exclusively to a work-related syndrome of exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism, others feel that burnout is a special case of the more general clinical depression or just a form of extreme fatigue/exhaustion (thus omitting the cynicism component).

Health care workers are often prone to burnout. Cordes and Doherty (1993), in their study of employees within this industry, found that workers who have frequent intense or emotionally charged interactions with others are more susceptible to burnout. Still, burnout can affect workers of any kind, including students at the high school and college levels.

High stress jobs can lead to more burnout than normal ones. Taxicab drivers, law enforcement personnel, air traffic controllers, musicians, teachers, lawyers, emergency service workers and high technology professionals seem more prone to burnout than others. General practitioners seem to have the highest proportion of burnout cases (according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of burnout).

Although burnout is work-related, most responsibility for burnout currently rests on the individual worker in the United States. Other countries, especially in Europe, have included work stress and burnout in occupational health and safety standards, and hold organizations (at least partly) responsible for preventing and treating burnout.

Burnout is now being studied in its reported antitheses, job engagement.

The word is also used as pejorative slang, referring to an individual who has burned themselves out on a vice, such as drugs or alcohol. It may also refer to an individual who has "burned out" his or her interest in life, similar to a slacker.

Measurement

Maslach Burnout Inventory

The Maslach Burnout Inventory is the earliest and most well-studied measurement of burnout. Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of on three scales:

• Emotional exhaustion (nine items)
• Depersonalization (five items)
• Personal accomplishment (eight items)

2 item burnout Inventory

In this survey, abnormal is defined as symptoms weekly or more on either item. The first item correlates with emotional exhaustion.

1. I feel burned out from my work or How often do you feel burned out from your work?

• Never
• A few times a year or less
• Once a month
• A few times a month
• Once a week
• A few times a week
• Every day

2. I have become more callous toward people since I took this job or How often do you feel you’ve become more callous toward people since you started your residency?

• Never
• A few times a year or less
• Once a month
• A few times a month
• Once a week
• A few times a week
• Every day

Mini Z

The Mini Z was adapted from earlier work by Rohland. The Mini Z is a single item (burnout is defined as answers c, d, or e) that correlates with the emotional exhaustion scale of the Maslach:

1. Using your own definition of “burnout,” please circle one of the answers below:

a. I enjoy my work. I have no symptoms of burnout.

b. I am under stress, and don’t always have as much energy as I did, but I don’t feel burned out.

c. I am definitely burning out and have one or more symptoms of burnout, e.g., emotional exhaustion.

d. The symptoms of burnout that I am experiencing won’t go away. I think about work frustrations a lot.

e. I feel completely burned out. I am at the point where I may need to seek help.

The Mini Z is promoted by the American Medical Association's Steps Forward campaign.

See also

• Stress (medicine)
• Compassion fatigue
• The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay: "My candle burns at both ends/It will not last the night."

References

• “A review and integration of research on job burnout”, Cordes, C. and Dougherty, T. (1993). Academy of Management Review, 18, 621-656. Cited in O'Driscoll, M.P. and Cooper, C.L. (1996).
• ”Sources of Management of Excessive Job Stress and Burnout”, In P. Warr (Ed.), Psychology at Work Fourth Edition. Penguin.
• “Tailoring treatment strategies for different types of burnout” Farber, B. A. (1998). Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 106th, San Francisco California, August 14-18. ED 424 517
• “Staff burnout”, Freudenberger, H. J. (1974). Journal of Social Issues, 30(1), 159-165.
• “Authentic leaders creating healthy work environments for nursing practice”, Shirey MR. American Journal of Critical Care May 2006. Vol. 15, Iss. 3; p. 256
• “Taming burnout's flame”, Krista Gregoria Lussier, Nursing Management Chicago: Apr 2006. Vol. 37, Iss. 4; p. 14
• “A Scientific Solution To Librarian Burnout”, Craig S. Shaw New Library World Year 1992 Volume: 93 Number: 5
• Stress and Burnout in Library Service, Caputo, Janette S. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1991.
• An assessment of burnout in academic librarians in America using the Maslach Burnout Inventor (the MBI) Ray, Bernice, Ph.D., Rutgers University - New Brunswick, 2002, 90 pages; AAT 3066762

External links

• Understanding and Preventing Teacher Burnout
• Staff "Burnout" in Child Care Settings
• Preventing burnout in youth sport
• Social Work Burnout
• Manager burnout
• Understanding and Managing Stress in the Academic World
• Stress and burnout
• Burnout Busters
• Information and research on burnout
• Predictors & prevention
• Burnout in volunteer organisations
• Hamburger Burnout Inventory - online self test developed by the University of Hamburg
• New Yorker Magazine - Can’t Get No Satisfaction - In a culture where work can be a religion, burnout is its crisis of faith