Chapter 1: Burnout and Workplace Injuries: A Longitudinal Analysis¹

Employees (N = 682) in 37 work units of the administrative services sector of a large USA organization completed two annual surveys of burnout, workload, and supervision. These surveys were linked to workplace injury rates for the work units as recorded by the organization’s human resources office during the subsequent year, for each of the two years of the study. The longitudinal analysis found that workload and exhaustion predicted the incidence of injuries during the subsequent year. Multiple regression analyses established that exhaustion mediated the relationship of workload with injury rate and that Year 1 injuries mediated the relationship of Year 1 exhaustion on Year 2 injury rates. Implications of burnout for workplace safety are considered.