Building stronger research on symptom development of burnout in Scandinavia

In this application, we propose that Associate Professor Leon De Beer do a research visit to the Unit of Occupational Medicine at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institutet.

Leon De Beer, currently at the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has specialist expertise in occupational stress research and applying the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT), which aligns well with the research at the Unit of Occupational Medicine.

In addition, Leon is an expert applied statistician and has methodological knowledge that we do not currently have at the Unit and his sharing this knowledge is therefore valuable.We have made a program for the research visit that emphasises the sharing of scientific expertise and qualifications between Leon and researchers at the Unit of Occupational Medicine.

The program includes presenting research and participating in discussions in seminars both at the institution and in various networks. It also includes hosting methodological workshops for doctoral students and postdocs.

In addition, we will work on two manuscripts and a grant proposal for further collaboration.One essential aim of the visit is to initiate a Scandinavian consortium conducting high-impact research on burnout and occupational stress using the BAT instrument.

Associate Professor De Beer has been involved in the BAT main consortium since 2017, validating the BAT scale and presenting its psychometric properties in other countries than Sweden.

A practical outcome of this visit is therefore to enable the establishment of a more formal BAT Scandinavian Network that can better coordinate research efforts between universities and countries, leading to efficiencies in addressing the questions surrounding work-related psychological distress.

An interdisciplinary Scandinavian BAT network will be able to inform local and regional governmental policy with multi-country data on burnout.