Burnout (psychology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest. Actors, musicians, mathematicians, authors, teachers, taxi drivers, athletes, engineers, emergency service workers, vocational rehabilitation, counselors, soldiers, scientists, reporters and high technology professionals seem more prone to burnout than others[citation needed]. 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). Burnout is not a recognized disorder in the DSM.
The most well-studied measurement of burnout in the literature is the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of emotional exhaustion and reduced sense of personal accomplishment.[2] This indicator has become the standard tool for measuring burnout in research on the syndrome. People who experience all three symptoms have the greatest degrees of burnout, although emotional exhaustion is said to be the hallmark of burnout.
Many theories of burnout include negative outcomes related to burnout, including job function (performance, output, etc.); health related outcomes (increases in stress hormones, coronary heart disease, circulatory issues), and mental health problems (depression, etc.).
Although burnout is work-related, most responsibility for burnout currently rests on the individual worker in the United States, as well as the individual company, as it is in a company's best interest to ensure burnout doesn't occur. 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.
