Burnout in mental health nurses: much ado about nothing?

The syndrome of burnout has been the focus of much research in the caring professions. Maslach and Jackson operationally defined the syndrome as comprising high levels of emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. They argued that the syndrome could be reliably measured using the 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory. The present authors gave this scale to 648 ward-based mental health nurses along...