Personal and Environmental Characteristics Predicting Burnout Among Certified Athletic Trainers at National Collegiate Athletic Association Institutions (Original Research) (Clinical Report‪)‬

Initially operationalized in the early 1970s and dismissed as a "fad" or "pseudoscientific jargon" by other researchers, (1) burnout recently has become a popular topic among health care workers. Burnout is a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and reduced personal accomplishment (PA). More specifically, EE is defined as a period during which "emotional resources are depleted, and workers feel that they are no longer able to give of themselves at a psychological level"; DP is a period during which an individual harbors "negative, cynical attitudes or feelings about one's clients"; and reduced PA is a "tendency to evaluate oneself negatively, particularly with regard to one's work with clients." (2) The development or exacerbation of burnout may result in many symptoms at the physiologic (eg, headaches, difficulty sleeping, poor appetite), psychological (eg, increased negative self-talk, depression, difficulty in interpersonal relationships), and/or behavioral (eg, diminished care, increased absenteeism, attrition) levels. These symptoms may impair the health care professional and lead to diminished care for the patient. In part because of their constant contact with people and the concomitant emotional involvement with clients, individuals in health care professions report higher rates of burnout compared with those in non-health care professions. (3-6) Increased burnout among health care professionals has been linked to increases in perceived job-related stressors, such as earning an inadequate salary, covering work for another employee, working overtime, making critical on-the-spot decisions, addressing crises, having staff shortages, lacking control over work, and having decreased discretionary time. (4,7)