Renzo Bianchi, an occupational health psychologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, says: “The Maslach scale made Burnout a good area for research. Before creating the questionnaire, job burnout was a topic in popular psychology.

The Maslach questionnaire is the most widely used tool to study Burnout, but many experts criticize the definition of this syndrome. In their 1998 book, The Burnout Companion to Study and Practice: A Critical Analysis, organizational psychologists Wilmar Schofley and Dirk Enzmann write: “Burnout is defined as a combination of emotional exhaustion, pessimism, and arbitrary ineffectiveness. What if other things are included in this definition? Most likely, other dimensions would appear.”

Furthermore, these three components and their causes are not well defined, says Evangelia Demerotti, an expert in organizational psychology and work psychology from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. For example, many non-work factors, such as health problems and caring responsibilities, can cause emotional exhaustion.

Disagreement about what constitutes Burnout and how to measure this phenomenon has led to messy scientific work. In this context, one of the key points is how to use the Maslach questionnaire.

Maslach never defined a clear line between Burnout and non-burnout. Instead, this questionnaire was designed to help researchers identify burnout patterns in a specific work environment. But Maslach has little control over how researchers use the questionnaire. A review of 182 studies on physician burnout in 45 countries, published in September 2018 in the journal JAMA, speaks volumes.

Almost 86% of the studies in the review above used a version of Maslach’s burnout questionnaire. But nearly a quarter of these studies used informal versions of the Maslach scale, such as cutting the number of items in half or measuring only emotional exhaustion. According to Maslach, those prescriptions are clinically invalid.

In addition, most of the researchers who use the mentioned questionnaire or its modified version determine the borderline scores. This is because the definitions of different research groups of high, medium, and low job burnout do not match. As a result, the prevalence estimates of doctors’ Burnout ranged from 0 to 80.5%, and according to the researchers, it is impossible to interpret these figures.

In addition, 142 definitions of job burnout are seen in all studies. Also, in the subset of studies that did not use a version of the questionnaire, the researchers found 11 unique ways to measure Burnout.

These concerns make some researchers want to return to the first point, which is the definition and measurement of job burnout. The process should begin with qualitative interviews to see how people with problems at work describe their experiences, says Demrotti. “We don’t have a good conceptualization and diagnosis of burnout,” he says. We have to start from scratch.”

Unbelievably yes. Bianchi and his team wrote in the journal Clinical Psychological Science in March 2021 that researchers agree that emotional exhaustion is one of the characteristics of the said syndrome.

The last two decades’ research also agrees that Burnout includes changes in cognition, such as memory and concentration problems. Charlie Renaud, an occupational health psychologist at the University of Rennes in France, says cognitive issues can manifest as forgetfulness, forgetting a meeting, or difficulty completing everyday tasks. Such conflicts can spill over into people’s personal lives, making leisure activities such as reading and watching movies painful.

Renaud says that with the increase in these findings, some researchers have begun to include questions related to cognitive changes in their burnout scales.

At first glance, these two concepts seem contradictory. The individual usually causes depression, and job burnout is caused by social forces, mainly the workplace. But some researchers have questioned whether Burnout exists as an independent diagnosis. Chronic environmental stress can cause depression, and a certain temperament can make a person prone to Burnout. Research shows that these concepts are not contradictory.

It is possible to experience job burnout. For example, Bianchi and his team reported in 2018 in the journal Psychiatry Research that a high score for the personality trait of neuroticism (characterized by irritability and anxiety) was a better predictor than some work-related factors, such as poor supervisor support and incompatibility with co-workers. Additionally, Burnout appears more often with depression than pessimism or ineffectiveness, Bianchi and his team reported in a 2021 paper.

If a set of symptoms characterizes Burnout, then emotional exhaustion and depression appear more promising than Maslach’s proposed triple combination, the researchers reported.

Not everyone thinks this is a good idea. “Burnout was never considered a clinical diagnosis,” says Maslach.

Bianchi and his team disagree. These researchers have presented an occupational depression questionnaire that evaluates nine main symptoms related to major depression, including cognitive impairment and suicidal thoughts, through the lens of work. For example, instead of rating statements such as “I feel like a failure,” participants place the tab “My experience at work has made me feel like a failure.”

Bianchi says that if Burnout is a form of depression, it can be treated the same way, and unlike Burnout, there are treatments for depression.

But Kersi Olla, an occupational health psychologist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, says: “Treating people, while often a necessary first step, does nothing to alleviate the work-related stressors that have caused this crisis. For example, a person is on sick leave for a few weeks, rests, and recovers but returns to a situation where the demands are too high and there is no support. He is exhausted again. “It is difficult to break this cycle.”

Burnout is not included in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. When the syndrome was listed in the International Classification of Diseases in 2019, the World Health Organization accepted Maslach’s idea. The organization noted that Burnout is an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition.

Most researchers agree that burnout interventions should target work-related stress at all levels, from the individual to the workplace and governing organizations. Interventions at the individual level include therapy, exercise, creating hobbies outside of work, and modifying jobs to better match goals.

Renaud and Agnes Lacroix, a developmental psychologist at the University of Rennes, reported on Jan. 2 in the International Journal of Stress Management that cognitive training programs that help restore memory, attention, and other cognitive deficits have shown promise in reducing mental problems associated with Burnout.

At the job level, simple solutions such as fewer video meetings and fewer distractions during the workday can reduce distress. Maslach says it’s time to let go of the small changes that have increased people’s workloads over time. All tasks add to people’s jobs and never detract from them.

However, stricter labor laws may be needed to combat Burnout in countries like the United States, where sick leave is rarely guaranteed, and few laws protect employees against overwork and job insecurity. But even without laws forcing employers to do so, governments and companies that prioritize healthy workplaces will ultimately benefit more. “When people feel good and cope well and have energy, they’re better employees,” Ola says.