Overall, analysis of the scores on the CBI subscales suggests what is well
recognised in organisational psychology: that exhaustion/stress/burnout is an
experience, which if evident in one area of a health worker's life is likely to affect
other areas of it too. One possible, if less common experience may be for individuals
to find some escape from stress in their personal lives within their work. More
common would be stressors affecting the personal domain as well. The CBI structure
appears to reflect these realities in the responses recorded in this study.
In sum, this study adds to concerns that have been expressed by others, that the
Maslach Burnout Inventory and its underlying definition, is as robust a measure for
this phenomenon as its history of usage might suggest. By comparison, the
Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, with its simpler conceptualisation of burnout as
fundamentally a fatigue phenomenon, appears to show adequate psychometric
properties worthy of further investigation in other studies.