Table 1.
Definitions of relevant wellbeing, mental health, and burnout concepts.
| Definitions |
|---|
| Anxiety disorder – An emotional state characterized by disproportionate feelings of tension, recurring, intrusive thoughts or concerns and physical changes like increased blood pressure or heart rate |
| Burnout – A workplace syndrome of physical and emotional exhaustion secondary to chronic occupational stress, with a spectrum of severity and symptomology. Distinct from depression and anxiety disorders, but occurrence and symptoms may overlap. Differs from compassion fatigue in that burnout usually stems from excessive responsibilities or time at work |
| Caregiver burden – The chronic stress or exhaustion due to the physical, emotional and mental strain of caregiving |
| Clinical burnout - Burnout severe enough to cause secondary physical and mental health conditions |
| Compassion fatigue – A form of secondary stress resulting from the physical, emotional, and psychological impact of helping others and exposure to the pain and distress of others. Often mistaken for burnout but related specifically to the diminishment of the empathetic response over time. It has been recently suggested by Perret et al. (14) that a more accurate descriptor of this condition would be “empathic distress” |
| Cynicism/Depersonalization - A dysfunctional, self-protective, coping mechanism for chronic work stress and exhaustion characterized by dehumanized and/or cynical attitudes toward the recipients of one's services. May include clients, colleagues, or institutional structures |
| Depression - A medical illness characterized by feelings of severe despondency, sadness, and/or inadequacy lasting more than 2 weeks, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep, and a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed |
| Emotional exhaustion – The decreased emotional energy as a result of excessive personal or work demands |
| Hidden curriculum - The implicit, unwritten, and sometimes unintended social and cultural norms, behaviors, values, rules, and expectations unofficially conveyed in an educational setting |
| Job demands - All physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects of a job that require physical, cognitive and/or emotional effort |
| Job strain – Psychosocial workplace stress that is comprised of high job demand and low job control |
| Moral injury or distress – The emotional state that arises when one identifies an ethically correct action to take but feels powerless or constrained from taking that action. This is distinct from burnout but not mutually exclusive and these conditions can occur concurrently. Moral injury may contribute to the development and progression of burnout |
| Pathological altruism - Behaviors that attempt to promote the welfare of others but themselves have damaging long-term consequences for the caregiver |
| Presenteeism - The behavior of coming into work when unwell/ill (applies to both physical and significant mental illness) |
| Professional efficacy - Job satisfaction and feeling of competence and successful achievement in one's work |
| Role ambiguity - Whereby individuals are uncertain about the scope of their duties, authority, allocation of time, and relationships with others |
| Role conflict - Emotional conflict arising when contradictory, competing or incompatible demands are placed on an individual in the fulfillment of their job or position |
| Resilience - The ability to “bounce back” from negative emotional experiences and to adopt flexible solutions to the changing demands of stressful experiences |
| Somatization - The physical manifestation of psychological symptoms that are insufficiently treated. These physical symptoms are not consciously controlled and may be life-disrupting or cause significant distress. Somatization examples include stress-related migraines or GI disorders |
| Secondary traumatic stress - a negative feeling driven by fear and trauma experienced indirectly through hearing details or witnessing the aftermath of a trauma experienced by another person. In veterinary medicine, this is commonly a work-related trauma and can be related to caring for and euthanizing suffering animals or providing emotional support and comfort to clients. Symptoms include difficulty concentrating, irritability, sleep disturbances, intrusive thoughts, and traumatic memories, and can be similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. Unlike burnout, these symptoms are usually rapid in onset (6) |
| Work compression - The expectation that a fixed amount of work is completed, but within fewer hours |
| Workplace bullying/mobbing – Repeated, less favorable treatment of one person by another in the workplace (a supervisor, subordinate, co-worker, or colleague) by actions that may be overt or covert and includes behaviors such as excluding or isolating individuals from opportunities/information/interaction with others, using undermining or demeaning language, creating undue pressure and stress, social humiliation, aggression, and harassment. Bullying is generally performed by one individual; mobbing describes multiple individuals targeting the same person |
| Workplace post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – Long lasting emotional, cognitive, and physical challenges related to negative, abusive, or traumatic workplace stressors or toxic work environments, with symptoms that include hyperarousal to stressors, flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the stressor |