A Brief Burnout Evaluation Scale (BBES) as a potential tool to prevent collapse of the health care task force during the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionIn the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where overloaded health systems seem inevitable, there is a need for reliable, conceptually adequate, and easily applied measurement tools to identify health professionals at risk. Objectiveto present the preliminary psychometric properties of a Brief Burnout Evaluation Scale (BBES) and its association with important outcomes, i.e., moderate to severe depression and suicidal ideation. MethodsThe BBES has 4 Likert-type items and was tested as part of a cross-sectional study that included 401 medical students. Reliability analysis and validity studies were performed. ResultsIn the parallel analysis, two factors were extracted, explaining 84.4% of the variance. The Cronbachs alpha was 0.78, showing high internal consistency. Considering a cut-off point of 12, the odds ratio for moderate to severe depression was 3.01 (CI 1.7-5.22; p<0.001) and for last month suicidal ideation 2.96 (CI 1.6-5.48). ConclusionThe results suggest good psychometric characteristics for the BBES, thus reinforcing its utility as an assessment tool for evaluating the well-being or distress of health professionals. It carries with it the potential to implement early interventions and to prevent the descent into burnout so common today in the health care task force during the pandemic.