Thesis

2.3. DEFINITION OF BURNOUT
According to Maslach (1982) burnout is more a result of negative work situations than of
negative people. It is a reaction to persistent everyday work stress instead of stressors
occurring occasionally. A very important characteristic of the burnout syndrome is a change
in how a person looks at other people. There is a change taking place, from going to viewing
people as something positive and caring to start viewing them as negative and uncaring. The
person starts looking at other people in a cynical way and the person develops a negative view
of herself as a worker and as a human being.
According to Alimoglu & Donmez (2005), burnout is recognized to be a lasting psychological
reaction to chronic emotional and interpersonal stress factors at one’s workplace. According
to Maslach, Jackson & Leiter (1996) burnout is described as having three components: high
emotional exhaustion (EE), high depersonalization (D) and low personal accomplishment
(PA). The first component, emotional exhaustion dimension, stands for the fundamental
individual stress aspect of burnout. This dimension explains feelings of being overextended
and one’s emotional and physical assets being used up. Extensive discussion has taken place
as to whether emotional exhaustion is the fundamental characteristic of burnout. When
looking at the second component, depersonalization, it stands for the interpersonal aspect of
burnout. This dimension stands for a negative, uncaring, or exceptionally disconnected
reaction to different parts of the work. The last component, lack of personal accomplishment,
stands for the self-evaluation aspect of burnout. This dimension stands for a feeling of being
incompetent at work, and feeling a lack of achievement and a lack of productivity at one’s
workplace.
According to Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter (2001) the burnout syndrome is especially said to
be a problem in caregiving professions and in service professions, since the main aspect of the
job in these occupations is the relationship between the caregiving staff and the recipient of
the caregiver’s service. People working within health care settings, in particular nurses, are
generally thought of as being at heightened risk for burnout and work stress. Looking at
previous research, a low-to-moderate or a moderate-to-high level of burnout has been reported
among nurses working in different nursing sectors (e.g., Barrett & Yates, 2002; Chen &
McMurray, 2001; Stordeur, Vandenberghe & D’hoore, 1999).