Investigating the validity of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool: A job demands-resources approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12). As a result of the pandemic, job stress has been compounded and the use of conceptually grounded and accurate measures is needed to identify burnout risks within specific organisations and the overall workforce. The study sample comprised 660 employees from various occupational settings who filled out an online survey. Latent variable methods with ordinal categorical data were implemented to model the data and to test the hypotheses for the study. Results showed that the proposed second-order factor model of the BAT-12 showed a good fit to the data and was invariant across gender and ethnicity. In addition, burnout – as operationalised with the BAT-12 – played the hypothesised mediating role in the Job Demands-Resources model. The BAT-12 also showed convergent validity with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The authors conclude that BAT-12 is a robust instrument with adequate psychometric properties to measure burnout risk and present a freely available online application for employees to estimate their risk of burnout.

Validation of the Croatian version of the short form of the Burnout Assessment Tool: Findings from a nationally representative sample

“…Table 3 shows the reliability coefficients for the BAT-12 total score and the four subscales, which was similar to previous studies (e.g., de Beer et al, 2022a;Oprea et al, 2021). Correlations between corresponding burnout measures between BAT and OLBI are presented in bold.…”

Beyond the Hype: (How) Are Work Regimes Associated with Job Burnout?

“…In line with the job demands–resources theory on the causes of burnout [ 1 , 7 ], the BAT-12 shows a positive relationship with job stressors and a negative relationship with job resources [ 19 , 20 ].…”

“…The choice for this instrument was motivated by three main reasons. First, the more recently developed Burnout Assessment Tool addresses the need for innovations related to (i) the conceptualisation of burnout and (ii) the psychometric and technical features of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, while simultaneously guaranteeing convergent validity with the latter (indicating that a similar concept is being measured) [ 5 , 19 , 20 ].…”

“…Second, this tool shows discriminant validity with other well-being constructs, such as work engagement and workaholism [ 5 ]. Third, the authors of the Burnout Assessment Tool have developed a shorter 12-item version (BAT-12) that was shown to have robust psychometric properties and can be used in an effective, valid way to measure employees’ burnout levels [ 20 ]. More specifically, the BAT-12 enables us to distill factor scores for all four core symptoms of burnout (exhaustion, mental distance, emotional impairment and cognitive impairment) as well as a total risk score that can be used as an overall indicator for job burnout [ 19 ].…”

Students’ Burnout at University: The Role of Gender and Worker Status

“…The BAT, also available in a short version, is inspired by a more comprehensive approach that capitalizes on the long-tradition research where strict relationships among emotional, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions in burnout syndrome have been confirmed [ 19 ]. In the last two years, it has been translated and adapted to be used in several countries for adult workers (e.g., [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]), high-school students [ 24 ], and recently university students [ 25 ], showing brilliant psychometric properties.…”