Maslach Burnout Inventory and a Self-Defined, Single-Item Burnout Measure Produce Different Clinician and Staff Burnout Estimates.

BACKGROUND

Clinicians and healthcare staff report high levels of burnout. Two common burnout assessments are the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and a single-item, self-defined burnout measure. Relatively little is known about how the measures compare.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the sensitivity, specificity, and concurrent validity of the self-defined burnout measure compared to the more established MBI measure.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional survey (November 2016-January 2017).

PARTICIPANTS

Four hundred forty-four primary care clinicians and 606 staff from three San Francisco Aarea healthcare systems.

MAIN MEASURES

The MBI measure, calculated from a high score on either the emotional exhaustion or cynicism subscale, and a single-item measure of self-defined burnout. Concurrent validity was assessed using a validated, 7-item team culture scale as reported by Willard-Grace et al. (J Am Board Fam Med 27(2):229-38, 2014) and a standard question about workplace atmosphere as reported by Rassolian et al. (JAMA Intern Med 177(7):1036-8, 2017) and Linzer et al. (Ann Intern Med 151(1):28-36, 2009).

KEY RESULTS

Similar to other nationally representative burnout estimates, 52% of clinicians (95% CI: 47-57%) and 46% of staff (95% CI: 42-50%) reported high MBI emotional exhaustion or high MBI cynicism. In contrast, 29% of clinicians (95% CI: 25-33%) and 31% of staff (95% CI: 28-35%) reported "definitely burning out" or more severe symptoms on the self-defined burnout measure. The self-defined measure's sensitivity to correctly identify MBI-assessed burnout was 50.4% for clinicians and 58.6% for staff; specificity was 94.7% for clinicians and 92.3% for staff. Area under the receiver operator curve was 0.82 for clinicians and 0.81 for staff. Team culture and atmosphere were significantly associated with both self-defined burnout and the MBI, confirming concurrent validity.

CONCLUSIONS

Point estimates of burnout notably differ between the self-defined and MBI measures. Compared to the MBI, the self-defined burnout measure misses half of high-burnout clinicians and more than 40% of high-burnout staff. The self-defined burnout measure has a low response burden, is free to administer, and yields similar associations across two burnout predictors from prior studies. However, the self-defined burnout and MBI measures are not interchangeable.