Overview and Management of Burnout Among Academics

Introduction

Burnout remains a major occupational health problem, posing a significant risk to human health globally (Ashipala & Nghole, 2022). The concept of burnout was first introduced by Herbert Freudenberg in 1974, before it was added to the 11^th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO described it as an occupational phenomenon, not as a medical condition, although immediately following this classification, the public assumed that burnout would now be considered a medical condition (Moss, 2019). Burnout is a chronic state of being physically and emotionally depleted, resulting from excessive job demands and ongoing problems. It can thus be described as a state of being emotionally over extended and exhausted by one's work (Bohannon, 2022).

According to Abbas, Kanwal and Iqbal (2018), job burnout is a syndrome caused by continual strain at work, with several negative outcomes for employees’ health and welfare. It has also been defined as a protracted-termed reaction against the persistent, emotional, and interpersonal strain resources in an enterprise environment, stated by Bedük, Eryeşil, & Eşmen, 2015 (as cited in Abbas, Kanwal & Iqbal, 2018, pp.87). Abbas et al. further described burnout according to the following three components: emotional exhaustion, which is caused by feelings of fatigue and being drained by one’s work; depersonalization, which is caused by the negative attitude towards, and dehumanizing treatment of, one’s clients in the work place; and reduced personal accomplishment, which is caused by a lack of feeling competent and achieving in one’s work.

More recently, Rocha et al. (2020) defined Burnout Syndrome as a combination of physical and emotional exhaustion caused by different work demands, which represent organizational aspects that require continuous physical, cognitive or emotional effort. Burnout Syndrome has thus been directly related to occupational stressors, which are defined as work-related conditions that generate tension arising from the imbalance between work demands and workers’ perceptions of their ability to deal with those demands appropriately. According to Ashipala and Nghole (2022), being burnt-out is very different from the unmanaged stress that all people experience from time to time. Rather, its symptoms are physical and emotional, and include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from, and feelings of negativity or cynicism towards, one’s job; and a reduced ability to do one’s work. At its core, burnout is caused by work that demands continuous, long-term physical, cognitive or emotional effort (Gewin, 2021). Research has shown that people with academic burnout may experience a lack of interest in academic issues, an inability to attend academic classes, disaffiliation from classroom activities, a sense of meaninglessness in academic activities, and an inability to manage academic issues (Charkhabi, et al., 2013). Professional burnout is a growing problem not only for employees but for businesses as well, negatively affecting organizational costs as well as employees’ health and well-being (Springer & Werner, 2020). Occupational stress and burnout are listed as major challenges for individual and institutional productivity and turnover, causing 12% of all workforce absences (Kaur, Noman & Awang-Hashim, 2018).