Abstract
We investigated the relationship between cognitive functioning, work performance, and sleep in non-clinical burnout. In a working population, an online survey was conducted with additional online neuropsychological tests of varying complexity, measuring attention and different components of working memory, of which the coordinating subcomponent the ‘Central Executive’ is thought to be the most vulnerable to stress. Results indicate that non-clinical burnout is associated with more—though not severe—sleep problems, more depressive complaints, impaired work performance, and with both subjective and objective cognitive impairments. Compared with healthy respondents (N = 107), people with non-clinical burnout (N = 17) had a significantly poorer performance on the tests of the visuospatial sketchpad and the Central Executive of the working memory. Our study also indicates that more complex tests may be more sensitive in detecting cognitive dysfunction in non-clinical burnout. Furthermore, a relationship was found between dual-task performance and work performance. Regarding to sleep quality, in our sample of people with non-clinical burnout, there were no severe sleep problems. In the entire sample, however, insomnia was significantly related to subjective, but not objective, cognitive functioning, and also not to work performance.
Highlights
We focus on impairments in cognition and sleep quality in the early phase of burnout and how this affects work performance
This study investigates whether cognitive functioning is impaired in non-clinical burnout and—if so—how this can be detected as early as possible and how this is related to job performance and sleep quality
This study investigated the association between cognitive functioning, sleep quality, and work performance in non-clinical burnout
Summary
‘Mr P. is a 54-year old consultant in a large international company. For almost a year he has had complaints of emotional and physical exhaustion, poor sleep, and other stress-related complaints. Sleep quality, and work performance in non-clinical burnout. In 2014, Deligkaris, Panagopoulou, Montgomery, & Masoura reviewed the literature on cognitive performance during burnout in the period of 2005–2013 and were able to include only 15 studies [11] They concluded that burnout patients tend to have impairments in the cognitive domains of attention, memory, and executive functioning. Sleep quality, and work performance in non-clinical burnout for cognitive impairment in burnout [6, 11, 12]. More research has been done in cancer patients, albeit on subjective cognition, where studies have found that subjective cognitive problems exerts a negative influence on work performance [28, 29] and work productivity [30] Based on these studies we expect that there may be negative effects of objective cognitive dysfunction in non-clinical burnout on work performance. Some of the points of discussion regarding these conflicting findings concern the ecological validity of neuropsychological tests [39], the (low) complexity of the tests used [42], and personality factors in insomniacs (i.e. high achievers [43])
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