Burnout
Workforce and Leadership
Definition. Burnout is a work-related syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation or cynicism, and reduced sense of personal accomplishment that results from chronic job stress.
Explanation
Maslach and colleagues described burnout as a response to chronic interpersonal stressors at work, shaped by workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values (Maslach et al., 2001). Health workers in oncology (Işıkhan et al., 2011) and emergency departments (Hamdan et al., 2026) show high levels, with differences across countries and professions.
Burnout harms staff health, increases turnover and is linked to lower quality and safety of care. Organisational interventions on workload and work design tend to be more effective than individual resilience training alone.
Related concepts
Work engagement Moral distress Turnover intention Job satisfaction Nurse staffing Second victim
Read on The Health Topics
- Oncology Healthcare Burnout and Coping Strategies
- Burnout among emergency department healthcare workers in Palestine and Türkiye: a cross-sectional comparative study
References
Balbay, Ö. A., Işıkhan, V., Balbay, E. G., Annakkaya, A. N., & Arbak, P. M. (2011). Burnout Status of Health Care Personnel Working in Oncology and their Coping Methods. HealthMED, 5 (4), 730–740
Hamdan, M., Erdem, R., Toraman, A., Ceylan, H., Rashed, A., & Jawabreh, B. (2026). Burnout among emergency department healthcare workers in Palestine and Türkiye: a cross-sectional comparative study. BMC Emergency Medicine.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Burnout. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/burnout/