Is that already a burnout or just lack of sleep? In the past, to diagnose burnout, you had to fill out tedious and lengthy questionnaires. A new study shows how just eight matches could make diagnosis easier in the future.

Tired, sluggish, no energy: These are symptoms that many employees are familiar with, especially in stressful phases. But often they don’t know whether they are just exhausted or really suffering from a burnout. A new visual test makes it easier to find the answer to this question.

The picture is plain and simple: eight matches in a row. On the far left is an unburned match, on the far right is a small pile of ashes, and in between are six matches that are getting more and more burned. Suspects of burnout should point to the matchstick that best describes their condition.

“Because the matchstick method is a visual measurement, assessing burnout is as quick and easy as possible – even across countries,” says lead author of the study, Cindy Muir. The scale was developed by the professor of management and organization at Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame in Chicago, together with Charles Calderwood from Virginia Tech and Dorian Boncoeur, assistant professor of management and organization at Mendoza.

Burnout has long since become a serious illness. In 2019, the World Health Organization first defined burnout as a syndrome related to stress at work. Accordingly, the burnout syndrome has three dimensions: a feeling of exhaustion, an increasing mental distance or negative attitude towards one’s own job, and reduced professional performance.

In 2020, the AOK reported an average of 5.5 cases of disability per 1000 members due to a burnout diagnosis – a significant increase since 2004, when there were only 0.6 cases. Extrapolated to all employees with statutory health insurance, this would result in around 180,000 burnout sufferers in 2020 according to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office.

Until now, HR managers and doctors could only diagnose burnout with long questionnaires. The so-called Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) has existed since 1981 and is still the best known. The 22 questions such as “I feel emotionally exhausted by my work” or “I feel frustrated by my work” have to be rated by the patients on a scale from 0 (never) to 6 (every day). This results in a burnout level that is based on the official definition of the World Health Organization.

In the last 40 years other questionnaires have also been added – also some that have been shortened to save valuable time and energy. Like the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure, which consists of twelve questions like “I feel physically exhausted” or “I’m tense”. The patient answers these questions on a scale from 1 (almost never applies) to 7 (almost always applies). The higher the bottom line, the more burned out the person feels.

But even the shortened questionnaires often rob time and energy – which someone suffering from burnout doesn’t have anyway. This is exactly what the researchers wanted to deal with with the new visual method: The study “eliminates one of the reasons why companies do not regularly screen their employees: time. Through the matchstick method, managers and organizations can better understand how common burnout is among their employees and how it changes over time,” says Muir in a press release from the University of Notre Dame.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, looked at 1,200 participants and showed that the visual scale is comparable to existing burnout questionnaires such as the Maslach Burnout Inventory. This means that the matchstick method can be used in the same way as the questionnaires in the future – only that a diagnosis with the image can be achieved much faster and easier, the authors write in the study.

(This article was first published on Monday, January 02, 2023.)