Burnout Among Professionals in ABA-Based Services in Brazil

Burnout among professionals working in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)-based services has received increasing attention internationally; however, there is limited empirical data from low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and characteristics of burnout among ABA professionals in Brazil and to examine how burnout indicators were distributed across professional and organizational characteristics within the sample.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with ABA professionals working in different regions of Brazil. Participants completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS), together with a questionnaire covering demographic, professional, and work-related variables. Burnout was analyzed descriptively, with each dimension classified into low, moderate, and high categories using established cutoff scores, and distributions were examined across professional roles, age groups, academic backgrounds, salary ranges, and caseload.

Burnout indicators were highly prevalent in this sample. High emotional exhaustion was identified in 77.4% of participants and low personal accomplishment (indicating greater burnout on that dimension) in 89.9%, whereas high depersonalization was less frequent (34.1%). Within this sample, the proportion of participants classified in the most severe category increased from behavior technicians to coordinators to supervisors across all three dimensions, and professionals managing more than 10 concurrent cases showed higher proportions of high depersonalization and low personal accomplishment. Categorical burnout distributions were similar across salary ranges.

These descriptive findings, which characterize the professionals surveyed rather than the Brazilian ABA workforce as a whole, point to the relevance of systemic and organizational responses to burnout in ABA services in Brazil. Improving working conditions, supervision quality, and support systems may contribute to better professional well-being and, consequently, to higher quality of care for individuals with autism.