Test Yourself: The Burnout Checklist

(Note: This focuses only on burnout: it is not a stress questionnaire.)

Review the past 12 months of your TOTAL life — work, social situations, family, and recreation. Reflect on each of the following questions and rate the amount of CHANGE that has occurred during this period. More emphasis should be placed on change that has occurred during the past 6 months.

Use the following scale and assign a number in the rating column that reflects the degree of change you have experienced. BE HONEST. The value of this self-assessment is negligible if you are not.

Rating

1. _____Do you become more fatigued, tired, or worn out by the end of the day?

2. _____Have you lost interest in your present work?

3. _____Have you lost ambition in your overall career?

4. _____Do you find yourself becoming easily bored (spending long hours with nothing significant to do)?

5. _____Do you find that you have become more pessimistic, critical, or cynical of yourself or others?

6. _____Do you forget appointments, deadlines, or activities, and do not feel concerned about it?

7. _____Do you spend more time alone, withdrawn from friends, family, and work acquaintances?

8. _____Has any increase occurred in your general level of irritability, hostility, or aggressiveness?

9. _____Has your sense of humor become less obvious to yourself or others?

10. _____Do you become sick more easily (flu, colds, pain problems)?

11. _____Do you experience headaches more than usual?

12. _____Do you suffer from gastrointestinal problems (stomach pains, chronic diarrhea, or colitis)?

13. _____Do you wake up feeling extremely tired and exhausted most mornings?

14. _____Do you find that you deliberately try to avoid people you previously did not mind being around?

15. _____Has there been a lessening of your sexual drive?

16. _____Do you find that you now tend to treat people as impersonal objects or with a fair degree of callousness?

17. _____Do you feel you are not accomplishing anything worthwhile in your work and that you are ineffective in making any changes?

18. _____Do you feel you are not accomplishing anything worthwhile in your personal life or you have lost spontaneity in your activities?

19. _____Do you spend much time each day thinking or worrying about your job or people, future or past?

20. _____Are you at the end of your tether, the point of breaking down or cracking up?

_____ Total Score

Interpretation:

Please remember, no inventory is absolutely accurate or foolproof. Your score on this Burnout Checklist is merely a guide to your experience of burnout. Take it as an indication that your life may be out of control. If your score is high, take steps toward finding help by consulting your family physician, psychotherapist, spiritual counselor, or personal advisor. The first step toward relief from burnout is to acknowledge, without being self-rejecting, that you have a problem.

Archibald Hart, Arcadia, California.