ABSTRACT
The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in research and writing on psychological burnout in work settings (Golembiewski et al., 1996b). The concept of the burnout syndrome is generally credited to Freudenberger (1974), whose initial paper on staff burnout among young volunteers working in a drug clinic became quite influential. At about the same time, Maslach (1976) adopted the term burnout in her studies of people in human services professions. After the introduction of the term, the topic of burnout became very popular. During the 1970s and early 1980s numerous publications appeared in journals and the mass media, and public interest in the topic grew (Schaufeli and Buunk, 1996). Writing in the popular press often exceeded knowledge based on solid research conclusions. As a result of widespread colloquial usage of the term, occupational burnout has become somewhat of a faddish concept.
