[What is burnout?]

Burnout is most often described as a concept with three separate dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (lack of empathy), and reduced accomplishments at work. We wanted to study the descriptive validity of the concept, which may be measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory was mailed to 1,476 members of the Norwegian Medical Association. The response rate was 73%. The dimensional structure of the instrument was examined by principal component analysis, and the identified factors correlated with validated measures of job satisfaction and depression. The dichotomized factors were combined in eight different ways, and the specificity of the resulting types was studied.

The three original dimensions were reproduced, and the internal consistency of the factors was good (Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.91 to 0.69). There were high correlations between emotional exhaustion and both job satisfaction (r = -0.54) and depression (r = 0.72).

Emotional exhaustion seems to be the least specific of the burnout dimensions. For the purpose of reasonable descriptive validity, the burnout notion should be based on both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. With the applied dichotomization thresholds, this implies that 3% of Norwegian physicians are "burned out".