Burnout

Burnout among healthcare workers, particularly physicians, has gained increasing attention recently. The societal expectation is that physicians will be selfless and put their patient’s needs first. Often physicians are expected to work long hours and do whatever it takes to help their patient and to go the extra mile; in other words give one's all. Burnout is further exacerbated by the changes in national health system and healthcare organizations; such changes are resulting in work environments that are high in demands and low in resources.

However, what is burnout is open to interpretation. Experts still debate about the dimensions of burnout. The most common burnout measurement tool, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) assumes three dimensions of burnout; emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA). MBI has been criticized for its various aspects. For example, it measures three dimensions of burnout (EE, DP, PA) but recommends against merging those three dimensions to reach to the measurement of burnout itself. Thus, MBI is measuring three concepts but unable to define a single concept of burnout. Another criticism is that burnout is an amalgam of an individual state (EE), an undesirable coping strategy (DP), and result of the EE state (lack of PA). However, the biggest criticism of MBI is that it is not available in public domain.

The dimensions of burnout are open for discussion. While MBI, as noted above, considers that burnout has three dimensions, others consider burnout to have two or even one dimension; it is possible that burnout may have more than 3 dimensions. For example, Oldenburg Burnout Inventory considers only two dimensions of burnout out while Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) considers only one dimension of burnout.

Obviously, the disagreements about the definition and dimensions of burnout limit the study of effective interventions and have lead some to suggest that burnout perhaps does not exist as a separate entity on its own.