Abstract
The phenomenon of burnout is a complex issue, which despite major efforts from researchers and organizations remains hard to prevent. The current literature highlights an increasing global prevalence of employees that are dealing with burnout. What has been largely missing is a more systemic, dynamic, and personal perspective on the interactions of the key determinants of burnout. Burnout can be seen as the outcome of a complex system involving feedback loops between individual mental models, individual behavior, and external social influences. Understanding the feedback loops involved may enable employees and organizations to intervene in burnout trajectories early and effectively. System dynamics (SD) modeling is a methodology that can describe the structure and behavior of a complex system. The current paper describes the development of an SD model of burnout. First, an expert- and literature-informed causal loop diagram (CLD) of burnout is developed. Then, a novel approach is developed to collect personal retrospective scenario data. Finally, the CLD and data are translated into a quantitative SD model. The potential of the SD model is illustrated by simulating the behavior of three realistic personas during the onset of and recovery from burnout. The process of development of an SD model of burnout is presented and the strengths and limitations of the approach are discussed.
Highlights
Prolonged work-related stress, together with associated negative health and performance, has become a societal concern around the globe affecting a high percentage of people and numerous organizations [1,2,3,4]
The aim of this paper is to describe the applicability of a combined modeling approach to develop a simulation model of burnout development and recovery
Beyond the job demands–resources model (JD-R) model, experts indicated that other models addressing related concepts have uncovered many relevant antecedents of burnout and deepened the understanding of the phenomenon [20,21,23,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38]
Summary
Prolonged work-related stress, together with associated negative health and performance, has become a societal concern around the globe affecting a high percentage of people and numerous organizations [1,2,3,4]. Work-related stress and burnout do have negative consequences for the health, safety, and wellbeing of workers, and for the productivity and cost-effectiveness of the industries and services they work for [1,4,5]. In 2017, the World Health Organization proposed urgent actions to promote health by preventing mental health problems and related noncommunicable diseases that could occur later in life [6]. Significant differences are noted between geographical regions, professions, and types of burnout measurement used. Public Health 2020, 17, 5964; doi:10.3390/ijerph17165964 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
