Stress is the mental or physical response to an external cause, or stressor. Stressors can be a one-time occurrence, like defending a thesis, or they can happen repeatedly over a long time, like homework.1 Recent research has shown that, while some stressors may elicit positive reactions, there is no clear demarcation between positive and negative stress. Multiple factors contribute to the way an individual responds to stress, including their previous experiences and personal motivations.2 This is important in the fields of health science because all health science professionals work under a high level of stress and must take extra care to manage their mental and physical responses to their work environment.
Burnout is a long-term stress reaction that is common in high-stress work environments, like medicine. It manifests as emotional exhaustion, a lack of motivation, depersonalization, frustration, and dissatisfaction with accomplishments. Burnout can affect any health science professional at any time in their career and can lead to critical errors. 3-4
Research on this topic commonly examines the causes of burnout, interventions to overcome burnout, and prevention strategies.
All of these results lists are from MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's international index and limited to publications within the past 5 years. Updated Mar 2024.
