Maslach Burnout Inventory

Maslach Burnout Inventory
Purposeintrospective psychological inventory pertaining to occupational burnout

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is a psychological assessment instrument comprising 16 to 22 symptom items pertaining to occupational burnout. The original form of the MBI was developed by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson. Their goal was to develop an instrument to assess an individual's experience of burnout symptoms. The instrument takes 10 minutes to complete. The MBI measures three dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Schaufeli (2003), a major figure in burnout research, criticized the instrument, writing that "the MBI is neither grounded in firm clinical observation nor based on sound theorising. Instead, it has been developed inductively by factor-analysing a rather arbitrary set of items" (p. 3).

Following the publication of the MBI in 1981, new versions of the MBI were gradually developed to apply to different occupational groups. There are now five versions of the MBI: Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS), Human Services Survey for Medical Personnel (MBI-HSS (MP)), Educators Survey (MBI-ES), General Survey (MBI-GS), and General Survey for Students (MBI-GS [S]).

The psychometric properties of the MBI have proved to be problematic, for example, in terms of factorial validity (measuring a unitary construct) and measurement invariance, casting doubt on the conceptual coherence and syndromal cohesiveness of burnout. Two meta-analyses report on sample-specific reliability estimates for the three MBI subscales. The meta-analyses found that the emotional exhaustion subscale has good enough reliability; however, evidence for the reliability of the depersonalization and personal accomplishment subscales is weaker. Research based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model indicates that the emotional exhaustion, the core of burnout, is directly related to demands/workload and inversely related to the extensiveness of the resources at a worker's disposal. The MBI has been validated for human services samples, educator samples, and general worker samples.

The MBI is sometimes combined with the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) to assess levels of burnout and worklife context.

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