Scale library · Psychology & mental health

Copenhagen Burnout Inventory: Kristensen et al. (2005)

The CBI was developed by Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen and Christensen (2005) in the Danish PUMA study and defines burnout as prolonged physical and psychological fatigue and exhaustion. It has three parts: personal burnout (answerable by anyone, including people not in work), work-related burnout and client-related burnout. It is publicly available and often used instead of the MBI, which must be purchased. It suits theses on burnout among nurses, doctors, teachers, bank and customer service staff, and as a mediator between job demands and turnover intention.

Cite the original, not the blog.

Original English items

Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.

Personal Burnout (PB, 6 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
PB1 How often do you feel tired? No
PB2 How often are you physically exhausted? No
PB3 How often are you emotionally exhausted? No
PB4 How often do you think: ”I can’t take it anymore”? No
PB5 How often do you feel worn out? No
PB6 How often do you feel weak and susceptible to illness? No

Work-related Burnout (WB, 7 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
WB1 Is your work emotionally exhausting? No
WB2 Do you feel burnt out because of your work? No
WB3 Does your work frustrate you? No
WB4 Do you feel worn out at the end of the working day? No
WB5 Are you exhausted in the morning at the thought of another day at work? No
WB6 Do you feel that every working hour is tiring for you? No
WB7 (R) Do you have enough energy for family and friends during leisure time? Yes

Client-related Burnout (CB, 6 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
CB1 Do you find it hard to work with clients? No
CB2 Do you find it frustrating to work with clients? No
CB3 Does it drain your energy to work with clients? No
CB4 Do you feel that you give more than you get back when you work with clients? No
CB5 Are you tired of working with clients? No
CB6 Do you sometimes wonder how long you will be able to continue working with clients? No

Response scale

Frequency and intensity scales, not agreement scales. 'How often…' questions use 5 levels: Always, Often, Sometimes, Seldom, Never/almost never; intensity questions use 5 levels: To a very high degree, To a high degree, Somewhat, To a low degree, To a very low degree. Score them 100, 75, 50, 25, 0 and average each part; WB7 alone is reverse-scored. According to the original documentation, respondents who answer fewer than 3 items (personal and client parts) or fewer than 4 items (work part) are treated as non-respondents for that part.

Recoding reverse-coded items: Item WB7 after scoring on 0–100: new score = 100 − score (100 becomes 0, 75 becomes 25, 50 stays the same).

Licence and permission

The Danish National Research Centre for the Working Environment (NFA) publishes the English version and scoring instructions on its website; the documents state no usage restrictions. The scale is widely used as a non-proprietary instrument; cite Kristensen et al. (2005).

Sources (APA 7)

Vietnamese translation

A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.

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