Single Item Measures of Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization Are Useful for Assessing Burnout in Medical Professionals
Open accessAbstract
Background Burnout has negative effects on work performance and patient care. The current standard for burnout assessment is the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a well-validated instrument consisting of 22 items answered on a 7-point Likert scale. However, the length of the MBI can limit its utility in physician surveys.Objective To evaluate the performance of two questions relative to the full MBI for measuring burnout.Design and participants Cross-sectional data from 2,248 medical students, 333 internal medicine residents, 465 internal medicine faculty, and 7,905 practicing surgeons.Measurements and main results The single questions with the highest factor loading on the emotional exhaustion (EE) ("I feel burned out from my work") and depersonalization (DP) ("I have become more callous toward people since I took this job") domains of burnout were evaluated in four large samples of medical students, internal medicine residents, internal medicine faculty, and practicing surgeons. Spearman correlations between the single EE question and the full EE domain score minus that question ranged from 0.76-0.83. Spearman correlations between the single DP question and the full DP domain score minus that question ranged from 0.61-0.72. Responses to the single item measures of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization stratified risk of high burnout in the relevant domain on the full MBI, with consistent patterns across the four sampled groups.Conclusions Single item measures of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization provide meaningful information on burnout in medical professionals.
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The MBI is the gold standard of burnout measurement in HCP samples.
“This is the gold standard of burnout measurement in HCP samples.32–34”
From Being Mindful: A Long-term Investigation of an Interdisciplinary Course in Mindfulness (2019) · cites this paper as [33]
Single-item measures of emotional exhaustion and cynicism from the MBI provide information on likelihood of burnout among medical professionals equivalent to the complete 22-item questionnaire.
“Two single-item measures of emotional exhaustion and cynicism (originally called depersonalization) were included from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)-based on West’s [39] research, which demonstrated that these measures provided information on likelihood of burnout among medical professionals equivalent to the complete 22-item questionnaire (single emotional exhaustion question, rs=0.76-0.83;”
From Physician Anxiety and Burnout: Symptom Correlates and a Prospective Pilot Study of App-Delivered Mindfulness Training (2020) · cites this paper as [39]
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- Authors
- West, C. P., Dyrbye, L. N., Sloan, J. A., & Shanafelt, T. D.
- Affiliations
- Mayo Clinic (US)
- Corresponding author
- West, Colin P.
- Venue
- Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Published
- 2009-10-03
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1318-1321
- ISSN
- 0884-8734 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-1497
- PMC
- PMC2787943
- OpenAlex
- W1982042151
- Cited by
- 725
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 85 · 2024: 57 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 76 · 2021: 86 · 2020: 88 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 12.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of General Internal Medicine (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- American College of Surgeons
- University of Washington
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
- Keywords
- burnout, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, single-item measures, Maslach Burnout Inventory, medical professionals, surgeons, internal medicine residents, medical students, burnout screening
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Burnout, Professional, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depersonalization, Female, Health Personnel, Humans, Internship and Residency, Male, Medical Staff, Middle Aged, Physicians, Stress, Psychological, Students, Medical, Workload
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