Burnout: The peril stalking academics and researchers

Burnout or burnout syndrome is a condition that arises from chronic unmanaged workplace stress. The primary impact of burnout is a profound depletion of energy and both physical and emotional exhaustion that impacts on the ability of the individual to continue to do their job. Reduced efficacy at work results in impaired performance, which amplifies the sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. Signs of burnout will include mental distancing from work and deep cynicism about the job, colleagues and clients.1 Individuals suffering from burnout may experience chronic fatigue, insomnia, anger, irritability, anxiety and depression. Although it is not considered to be a medical condition, the World Health Organization2 has recognised burnout as a syndrome in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). If burnout is not dealt with, the impacted person will become more anxious and depressed, at risk of physical illness, may lose their job and suffer relationship breakdowns.3 Burnout is not only a health issue for the impacted individual. Lower productivity and quality of work will have an effect on colleagues and reduce the effectiveness of teams and networks. Burnout can also be contagious in that the falling productivity of one person increases burdens on those around them. For example, Bakker et al.4 found that the most important predictor of burnout among intensive care nurses was exposure to other colleagues stories of burnout, cynicism and emotional exhaustion. Cynicism causes conflict between colleagues and undermines teams. Networks of cynical gossip and the active disengagement of staff from the aims and values of an employer promote the burnout of others.5 Empirical data on the prevalence of burnout in academic researchers are lacking and it is impossible to evaluate whether researchers are more prone to experiencing the syndrome than other professionals. However, a number of reported surveys suggest that in the USA and UK, burnout and the pathway to burnout are common features of the academic research workplace A poll of 1122 faculty members in the USA found that 70% reported experiencing work-related stress during 2020 and this was more than double that seen in 2019. There was also increased reporting of anger and fatigue and more than half of respondents said that they were considering changing their job or retiring.1 In the UK, a report commissioned by The Wellcome Trust found that almost half of researchers were dealing with stress and anxiety and a third were receiving professional help for their mental health.6 Although the literature is sparse, there is some agreement that burnout occurs at all points along the research career pathway and that more junior researchers and women are more likely to experience it than more senior academics.7, 8 Around one in five US academics report suffering from depression and, again, this is more common among junior members of staff.9 This is markedly above the population averages for developed countries. Mental health challenges are among the greatest concerns reported by the PhD student community. There is nothing special about the discipline of nutrition and dietetics in terms of burnout risk. Indeed, dietetics as a profession is generally considered to be one of the lower risk groups when considering clinicians as a whole. The aim of this Editorial is to explore the general concept of burnout in relation to researchers in universities and research institutes and to highlight the fact that the risk of a career ending mental health injury is there for every level of researcher from PhD student up to professor. The nature of the academic research environment is extremely variable between institutions. Some adopt an unashamedly cut-throat high-performance culture, whereas others seek to nurture talent with a more positive culture which embraces different values. However, regardless of the underpinning values, all academic research centres suffer from the same core problems that are hard-wired into the profession. To start with, the environment selects high-achievers to provide the key staff resource. PhD studentships, postdoctoral posts, fellowships and tenured positions go to people who demonstrate success in their discipline and, in most cases, that success is indicated by traditional academic measures: published papers and research grant income. The success in these areas that is required to gain positions depends on having a mindset (ambitious, driven, committed) that is a risk factor for burnout. Having secured the services of those high-achievers who are used to success and unfamiliar with rejection, universities then expose them to a world in which failure is a regular occurrence because most grant applications are not funded and most paper submissions are rejected at least once. The academic research environment is unusual in that research is generally not regarded as being a job and certainly not an occupation that fits into the standard 9 to 5 working hours. Researchers are driven by their love of their subject, ambition, and beliefs6 and this compounds the institutional factors that drive burnout. The research profession is assessed using very narrow definitions of what success looks like1 and does not generally reward or value things that contribute to a better workplace. Individual success is measured by income and output, and internal competition is often actively encouraged by institutions. Most academic researchers work with the stress of time pressure, which is related to frequent deadlines for major tasks that often have to be delivered at short notice. The Wellcome Trust survey of UK researchers6 found that almost half of respondents felt that research takes a back seat to other tasks and one-third felt that they could not adequately balance the demands of their different roles. The constant shifting between tasks to ensure that things are achieved in a timely manner means that academics find that they have to deliver things at a level well below the standard they would wish for most of the time. This generates feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction. Researchers are generally self-directed, a freedom that is a major positive about the job, but, at the same time, this can result in a lack of clarity and uncertainty about what the expectations of the job are.8 Workloads are perceived to be high and continuously increasing and university cultures promote working long hours, with evening and weekend work taking individuals well beyond contracted hours.7 The Wellcome Trust survey found that 69% of researchers worked longer than 40 h a week and 57% reported a long-hours culture in their institution.6 Excessive hours exacerbate the sense that a research role is poorly remunerated given the level of educational achievement required to be in the role. In junior researchers, this is compounded by the precarity of short-term contracts of employment. It is therefore no surprise that emotional exhaustion and burnout can be an outcome. It is likely that the number of people in the current pool of researchers and academics who are on the verge of burnout is now at an unprecedently high level. The circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic will have proven challenging for many researchers. Lockdowns and advice to stay at home immediately cut people off from their work networks and, at the same time, increased academic workloads because teaching had to be rewritten to be delivered online, student assessments redesigned and isolated undergraduate students needed considerably more reassurance and support than ever before. Researchers needed to give time to look after their children, and often had to take on responsibility for home-schooling them. Most research disciplines saw disruption because of a lack of access to laboratory facilities or to research participants. PhD programmes were rapidly redesigned and scaled back. Most research projects fell behind deadlines and despite sympathetic funders many failed to deliver objectives. Some had to be abandoned completely, wasting years of network building and groundwork. Many of these issues impacted women to a greater degree than men.1 The pressures on researchers were colossal and there was undoubted detriment to the mental health of a significant proportion of the academic research community.1 Although measures taken to limit the spread of COVID-19 have been largely abandoned, the persistent changes to the way in which researchers work, with most people working from home at least some of the time, will continue to elevate the risk of burnout due to isolation from colleagues and supporting networks. I am pleased to say that I am a (slowly) recovering academic. I burned out completely in 2021 and I anticipate being back to full capacity at some point before the end of the decade. My burnout was a clear result of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the worst of which I was a Head of School in addition to running my research and being the Editor of the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. The drivers of the burnout were fairly obvious ones – uncertainty about the future, pressure to perform, a cripplingly high workload – and the final pushes were generated by the isolation of working from home, removal from a team environment and the huge uncertainties that lay behind almost every facet of my role. My solution to the problem has been to walk away from the environment and retire, but this is not an option for researchers at earlier stages of their careers, although, over the last 10 years, I have seen many promising scientists decide to move into other professions to attain a healthier work-life balance. For every colleague who has successfully done so, there are many others who fail to cope and then spend years attempting to conceal their loss of motivation and capacity to work. As a senior manager, I have had to find ways of supporting and usefully engaging several colleagues in this situation. Although universities and research institutions are becoming more open about, and aware of, the mental health challenges experienced by their faculty members, the solutions that they are able to put in place are generally inadequate and are lagging behind in terms of the causes of burnout. In the new world beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, new working practices that involve more working at home and detachment from teams, mentors, supervisors and traditional employee anchor points may make the research environment more challenging and dangerous to mental health than ever before. Universities are active in promoting wellbeing and good mental health among their students. Providing a supportive environment and taking action to avoid student suicide is a core activity for the modern university, and extensive welfare and support teams are the norm. These efforts rarely translate into good support for staff and, in high-pressure, high-performance research environments, there may be a reluctance to talk about difficulties or step-back from some areas of work for fear of adverse career consequences. Most people under pressure find it easier to discuss their issues and seek support from loved ones and friends rather than colleagues and supervisors.10 The range of neurodiversity encountered in academia is significant because people with particular behavioural traits (e.g., the autism spectrum) are strongly attracted to the environment and are often high achievers. These same traits can increase vulnerability to mental health crises under pressure. Burnout can be avoided if the at-risk individuals are able to recognise the signs of in themselves and if they have the confidence and support to take the necessary actions. The risk lies with jobs that are too big to be completed within a normal working day; that have competing demands; that do not provide sufficient reward; that have features perceived as unfair and inequitable; and that comprise work environments promoting unfairness and isolation. The signs of possible burnout include feelings of distraction, irritability or inadequacy; poor concentration and muddled thinking; and feeling trapped, depressed or hopeless.11 Changes in behaviour, including apathy, reduced aspiration and commitment, making uncharacteristic mistakes, or behaving badly towards others, are all manifestations of the burnout syndrome.11 Once the potential for burnout is recognised, there are many strategies that can be taken to avert it. Critically, there needs to be a detachment from the causes of stress, involving quality time out of the working environment (sticking to strict working hours, taking breaks and vacations, focusing on relaxation, meditation, and hobbies).12 The unhealthy ways of working that generate the stress need to be dealt with too. Taking control over workload as much as possible and prioritising and balancing tasks to ensure that the pleasurable activities (research) are not pushed aside by the less rewarding (administrative) work can all help. Avoiding gossip and taking simple measures such as not having email available on a personal phone and switching off in personal time are simple steps to follow. These actions need to be matched with a conscious recognition that the feelings of burnout are a response to external factors and should not be internalised as an indicator of personal failure.12 Recovering from burnout, once it has occurred, is not easy and will take many months. The burned-out individual is emotionally exhausted and disconnected from their workplace and activities. The physical and emotional exhaustion can be dealt with through strategies that improve sleep, increase exercise or even improve nutrition.13 Relaxation strategies, changes to work patterns, ensuring that breaks and vacations are used, and training in coping skills can relieve the stressors which contribute to burnout.12 Dealing with the depersonalisation (cynicism) element of burnout is more challenging because the individual needs to reconnect with colleagues who may have experienced negative interactions in the burnout process, as well as the employing organisation that failed to prevent the burnout. This can only be achieved if the institution has appropriate values that allow for resocialisation and reintegration. The origins of researcher burnout are complex. There are institutional drivers that vary a little from place to place; there are systematic drivers that are set by the ways in which we measure success; and there are personal drivers that are part of the mental make-up of individual researchers and are reinforced by training and cultural exposures. Ultimately, these are problems that are buried deeply in the research cultures that are prevalent in our research system. This means that it is beyond the capacity even for whole institutions to make changes that provide adequate protection for their researchers. It is all very well to set policies on working hours for example, but, if researchers own ambition and desire to succeed establishes local pockets of normalised out of hours working, such policies become meaningless. Initiatives such as the UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers14 are a step forward because they commit funding bodies and research institutions to work together and have researcher wellbeing as a priority. Ultimately, each and every one of us has the responsibility to care for ourselves and to look after the researchers we work with. Because nutrition and dietetics, even on a global scale, remains a relatively small discipline, perhaps we can develop a kinder culture in which ruthless competition gives way to support and encouragement. Simon Langley-Evans is responsible for the writing of this article and the concepts explored. The author declares no conflict of interest. None.