American Journal of Nursing Science

Submit a Manuscript

Publishing with us to make your research visible to the widest possible audience.

Propose a Special Issue

Building a community of authors and readers to discuss the latest research and develop new ideas.

Clinical Research Monitor Burnout - Root Causes, Corrective and Preventive Action

In clinical research settings, both psychological and physical well-being are components of individual health, and they are interdependent. Both elements should be considered while assessing well-being over the long run. Burnout and work-related stress are ongoing issues in industrialized nations. Early diagnosis and treatment of job-related stress symptoms might lessen individual suffering and enhance creativity and productivity at work. Clinical research monitors are responsible for various challenging activities, including recruiting patients, monitoring and evaluating patients, and data collection, among others. Despite initiatives such as role delineation and structural changes to streamline the complexity of this position, many research monitors continue to experience burnout due to the overwhelming and demanding nature of their job. This article aims to evaluate and define the trends of burnout in clinical research, identify personal and professional traits that are linked to burnout, and discuss the root cause, and corrective, and preventive actions of clinical research to monitor burnout. To prevent burnout, strategies such as time management, prioritization, self-care, and supportive work environments need to be implemented. Burnout has a considerable impact on contemporary culture and can affect socioeconomic status and job happiness. Therefore, it is crucial to address burnout in clinical research settings to promote the well-being of research monitors and improve the quality of research outcomes. The primary goals of this article are to assess and define burnout trends in clinical research, as well as to identify the personal traits, professional traits, excessive workload, area of competence, years of experience, and work fulfillment which are associated with burnout. Also provided corrective and preventive measures.

Clinical Research, Burnout, Human Multi-Tasking, Workload Stress

John Ughulu. (2023). Clinical Research Monitor Burnout - Root Causes, Corrective and Preventive Action. American Journal of Nursing Science, 12(3), 64-68. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajns.20231203.12

Copyright © 2023 Authors retain the copyright of this article.
This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Lloyd, C., King, R. and Chenoweth, L., 2002. Social work, stress, and burnout: A review. Journal of mental health, 11 (3), pp. 255-265.
2. Maslach, C. and Leiter, M. P., 2016. Burnout. In Stress: Concepts, cognition, emotion, and behavior (pp. 351-357). Academic Press.
3. Fried, A. L. and Fisher, C. B., 2016. Moral stress and job burnout among frontline staff conducting clinical research on affective and anxiety disorders. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 47 (3), p. 171.
4. Riethof, N., Bob, P., Laker, M., Varakova, K., Jiraskova, T. and Raboch, J., 2019. Burnout syndrome, mental splitting and depression in female health care professionals. Medical Science Monitor: International Medical Journal of Experimental and Clinical Research, 25, p. 5237.
5. Warlick, C. A., Van Gorp, A., Farmer, N. M., Patterson, T. and Armstrong, A., 2021. Comparing burnout between graduate-level and professional clinicians. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 15 (2), p. 150.
6. 3 types of burnout, and how to overcome them (2022) Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2022/08/3-types-of-burnout-and-how-to-overcome-them (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
7. Murray, S. (2020) How multi-tasking can lead to Burnout, Thrive Global. Available at: https://community.thriveglobal.com/the-hard-facts-on-multi-tasking/#:~:text=Attempting%20to%20multi%2Dtask%20is,shares%20similar%20symptoms%20with%20depression. (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
8. Magness, S. (2019) Is your boss causing your burnout? The Growth Equation. Available at: https://thegrowtheq.com/is-your-boss-causing-your-burnout/ (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
9. Sheppard, S. (2021) Prevent burnout with mental health breaks, Verywell Mind. Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-best-way-to-switch-tasks-to-avoid-burnout-5095637 (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
10. Helbig, B. (2022) Manager Burnout and how to deal with it, The Washington Post. WP Company. Available at: https://jobs.washingtonpost.com/article/manager-burnout-and-how-to-deal-with-it/ (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
11. Moss, J. (2021) To prevent burnout, stop micromanaging and give more autonomy, Worth. Available at: https://www.worth.com/prevent-burnout-stop-micromanaging-give-more-autonomy-jennifer-moss/ (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
12. Dion, S. et al. (2022) Management training is the key to preventing burnout in 2022, Training Industry. Available at: https://trainingindustry.com/articles/leadership/management-training-is-the-key-to-preventing-burnout-in-2022-seo-dion/ (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
13. Simon R. et al. (2020) Technical Solution for Burnout, the Modern Age Health Issue 2020, IEEE 20th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9140516/references#references/ (Accessed: December 6, 2022).
14. Diggory, T. et al. (2022) Five ways in which employee recognition can prevent burnout, Calmer. Accessible at: https://www.thisiscalmer.com/blog/5-ways-employee-recognition-can-prevent-burnout (Accessed: December 5, 2022).
15. Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642#:~:text=Job%20burnout%20is%20a%20special,as%20depression%2C%20are%20behind%20burnout.