Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
Researchers gave the new Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the older Rutter questionnaires to parents and teachers of 403 children from dental and psychiatric clinics. SDQ scores were highly correlated with Rutter scores, and parent-teacher agreement was similar or sometimes better for the SDQ. Both tools were about equally…
Researchers have studied burnout for several decades. They have made tests and theories and used studies from many countries. Most work has looked at human service jobs, especially health care. Research on psychiatrists shows similar causes and results as other fields. But psychiatry also faces some unique stresses, such as…
This 2006 meta-analysis combined past studies on social support and burnout. Overall, social support showed similar links to the three burnout parts: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (feeling detached or cynical), and reduced personal accomplishment (feeling less effective at work). But the source of support mattered: support from work was more strongly…
This review pooled studies from 2007–2018 to measure how strongly burnout is related to depression and to anxiety. The authors found a moderate positive link with depression (r = 0.52) and a moderate link with anxiety (r = 0.46). They also report that measurement choice and study quality changed the…
This open review explains burnout as a gradual response to long-term work stress that can harm thinking, feelings, and attitudes. It describes common causes, effects, ways to measure burnout, and actions to prevent or reduce it. The review highlights three main parts of burnout—emotional exhaustion, detachment or cynicism, and feeling…
This 2021 review looked at research on the biology of burnout, which it defines as exhaustion from long or excessive workplace stress. The authors found evidence that burnout is linked with ongoing activation of the nervous system, problems in the body’s fast stress response (the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axis), and changes in…
Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health…
This review looks at whether burnout should be called a distinct mental disorder. The authors say the science is unclear because burnout lacks solid definitions and reliable measures. They conclude it is premature to add burnout as a formal mental disorder, but they also say burnout is a real and…
Burnout is described as an occupational phenomenon of long-term work stress that leads to emotional exhaustion, physical tiredness, and trouble thinking clearly. The review says both job factors and personal traits matter, and that long-lasting burnout is linked to worse sleep and to some health problems (for example mild cognitive…
Researchers interviewed 25 internal medicine residents and recent graduates who said they had recovered from burnout. They found two main kinds of burnout: circumstantial (caused by specific work or life situations) and existential (caused by loss of meaning or an uncertain professional role). Recovery methods were different for each kind.…
This study followed 213 hospital workers at a Toronto teaching hospital with surveys at six time points over 15 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses reported the highest moral distress. Early measures of job type and one dimension of burnout (depersonalization) explained about 45% of the differences in moral distress…
This small, nonrandomized pilot study gave a 30-day app-based mindfulness program (about 10 minutes per day) to 34 physicians who reported anxiety. Average anxiety scores fell by 48% after 1 month and by 57% after 3 months. Measures of burnout (cynicism and emotional exhaustion) were correlated with anxiety and also…
