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Introduction
Burnout has been defined as a psychological syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion (feelings of being emotionally drained and lacking emotional resources), depersonalization (detachment and negative reactions to people and the job), and reduced personal accomplishment (feelings of inadequacy and failure) occurring in response to chronic occupational stress [1]. Various conceptual models have been proposed over the years to describe burnout as both a state and as a process [2]. It has been theorized that the three dimensions of burnout occur sequentially: firstly, exhaustion develops in response to high demands and work overload, then this would lead to depersonalization or cynicism, and if this continues, reduced personal accomplishment or professional inefficacy will occur in the third stage [3].
Several demands-resources imbalance theories of burnout have received empirical support. According to the Job Resources-Demands model, burnout is a process that arises from a work-based mismatch and develops through two separate pathways: excessive job demands leading to exhaustion, and insufficient job resources leading to disengagement [4]. Conservation of Resources model, which follows a motivational theory, posits that burnout arises due to persistent threats to available resources, which lead them to strive to maintain those resources [5]. Another model—the Areas of Worklife model—relates burnout to a mismatch between a person and six areas of worklife—workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values [6].
Although the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which conceptualizes burnout as a three-dimensional construct, has dominated the assessment of burnout in research contexts [1, 2], other alternative approaches have also emerged over the years. Oldenburg Burnout Inventory assesses only the two dimensions of exhaustion and work disengagement [7]. Some burnout measures focus on exhaustion alone, but distinguish between various aspects of exhaustion. Examples include the Shirom‐Melamed Burnout Measure, which differentiates between physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness [8], and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), which makes a distinction between personal burnout, work-related burnout (work burnout), and client-related burnout (client burnout) [9]. According to Kristensen et al. [9], personal burnout is the degree of physical and psychological fatigue and exhaustion experienced by the person; work burnout refers to the degree of physical and psychological fatigue and exhaustion perceived by the person as related to his/her work; and client burnout as the fatigue and exhaustion perceived by the...