Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
-
Emergency physicians have the highest rates of burnout among all specialties. Existing burnout tools include the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) and single-item measures from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). While both were designed to measure burnout, how they conceptualize this phenomenon differs and their agreement is unclear. Given the close conceptual relationship between emotional regulation strategies such as distancing and distraction with the MBI subscale of depersonalization, we examined agreement between the two inventories and association with emotional regulation strategies as a lens to explore the conceptualization of burnout. ⋯ Despite near-equal rates of burnout, agreement between the CBI and single-item measures from the MBI varies and was lower for younger emergency physicians/trainees. While emotional regulation strategies were felt to be important in supporting a career in emergency medicine, they were strongly associated with burnout. Future research is needed to better understand this phenomenon and which tools to use to measure burnout.