Abstract
BackgroundBurnout is generally perceived a unified disorder with homogeneous symptomatology across people (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy). However, increasing evidence points to intra-individual patterns of burnout symptoms in non-clinical samples such as students, athletes, healthy, and burned-out employees. Different burnout subtypes might therefore exist. Yet, burnout subtypes based on burnout profiles have hardly been explored in clinical patients, and the samples investigated in previous studies were rather heterogeneous including patients with various physical, psychological, and social limitations, symptoms, and disabilities. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore burnout subtypes based on burnout profiles in clinically diagnosed burnout patients enrolled in an employee rehabilitation program, and to investigate whether the subtypes differ in depression, recovery/resources-stress balance, and sociodemographic characteristics.MethodsOne hundred three patients (66 women, 37 men) with a clinical burnout diagnosis, who were enrolled in a 5 week employee rehabilitation program in two specialized psychosomatic clinics in Austria, completed a series of questionnaires including the Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS), the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Recovery-Stress-Questionnaire for Work. Cluster analyses with the three MBI-GS subscales as clustering variables were used to identify the burnout subtypes. Subsequent multivariate/univariate analysis of variance and Pearson chi-square tests were performed to investigate differences in depression, recovery/resources-stress balance, and sociodemographic characteristics.ResultsThree different burnout subtypes were discovered: the exhausted subtype, the exhausted/cynical subtype, and the burned-out subtype. The burned-out subtype and the exhausted/cynical subtype showed both more severe depression symptoms and a worse recovery/resources-stress balance than the exhausted subtype. Furthermore, the burned-out subtype was more depressed than the exhausted/cynical subtype, but no difference was observed between these two subtypes with regard to perceived stress, recovery, and resources. Sociodemographic characteristics were not associated with the subtypes.ConclusionsThe present study indicates that there are different subtypes in clinical burnout patients (exhausted, exhausted/cynical, and burned-out), which might represent patients at different developmental stages in the burnout cycle. Future studies need to replicate the current findings, investigate the stability of the symptom patterns, and examine the efficacy of rehabilitation interventions in different subtypes.
Highlights
Burnout is generally perceived a unified disorder with homogeneous symptomatology across people
Burnout subtypes in clinical burnout patients The present study explored different burnout subtypes based on Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) profiles in clinical burnout patients enrolled in an employee rehabilitation program in a psychosomatic clinic
As increasing evidence points to intra-individual patterns of burnout symptoms in nonclinical samples such as students, athletes, healthy and burned-out employees [13, 15], this study addressed the specific research question of whether different burnout subtypes can be identified in clinically diagnosed burnout patients and whether these burnout subtypes differ in depression, recovery/resources-stress balance, and sociodemographic characteristics
Summary
Burnout is generally perceived a unified disorder with homogeneous symptomatology across people (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy). The aim of this study is to explore burnout subtypes based on burnout profiles in clinically diagnosed burnout patients enrolled in an employee rehabilitation program, and to investigate whether the subtypes differ in depression, recovery/resourcesstress balance, and sociodemographic characteristics. Despite some conceptual controversies [4,5,6,7, 12], the most widely accepted definition of burnout is the one by Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter [6], who defined it as a work-related stress syndrome characterized by three main symptoms: exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.
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