Pandemic burnout is rampant in academia

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, many in the academic scientific workforce are experiencing a state of chronic exhaustion known as burnout, writes Virginia Gewin for Nature.

Although it is not a medical condition and can occur in any workplace where there is stress, burnout is recognised by the World Health Organization as a syndrome. Its symptoms are physical and emotional, and include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from and feelings of negativity or cynicism towards one’s job; and a reduced ability to do one’s work. At its core, burnout is caused by work that demands continuous, long-term physical, cognitive or emotional effort.

Indicators of the syndrome have risen sharply in some higher education institutions over the past year, according to surveys in the United States and Europe. In a poll of 1,122 US faculty members that focused on the effects of the pandemic, almost 70% of respondents said they felt stressed in 2020, more than double the number in 2019 (32%). The survey, conducted last October by the Chronicle of Higher Education and financial services firm Fidelity Investments in Boston, Massachusetts, also found that more than two-thirds of respondents felt fatigued, compared with less than one-third in 2019. During 2020, 35% felt angry, whereas just 12% said that in 2019. The results were released last month.
Full report on the Nature site