Burnout Test — Free 19-Question Self-Assessment (CBI)

The Burnout (Copenhagen) test looks at three areas — personal burnout, work-related burnout and client-related burnout — across 19 questions, and takes about 4 minutes. The 6 personal items ask how often you feel tired and physically or emotionally exhausted, regardless of work; the 7 work-related items ask about being worn out at the end of the workday, losing energy at the thought of another day of work, and frustration caused by your job. The 6 client-related items ask how hard and draining it is to work with clients or their caregivers.

Answers run across five steps, from "Always / to a very high degree" to "Never / to a very low degree", converted to 100, 75, 50, 25 and 0 points. Each area score is the average of its items, so all three areas sit on the same 0–100 scale even though they have different numbers of items. One work item — whether you have enough energy for family and friends in your free time — is scored in reverse, so the less energy you have left, the higher the score.

Each area is labelled normal below 50, risk of burnout from 50 to 74, and severe burnout at 75 or above. Because each area is judged on its own, it is common to see, for example, a normal personal score next to a high client-related score. A profile like that is a clue that the exhaustion is concentrated in dealing with people rather than in work as a whole.

The client-related items are written for people whose work involves caring for or serving others — patients, students, customers and the like — so if your job rarely involves that, treat this area as a rough reference. Scores can also run lower or higher than usual at unusual moments, such as right after a holiday or just after a big deadline. The result is a screening self-check of how depleted you are now, not a diagnosis.

This test is based on the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), published by Kristensen and colleagues in 2005 in the journal Work & Stress. Its distinctive feature is that it treats fatigue and exhaustion as the core of burnout and then separates where that fatigue is attached — your personal life, your work, or your work with people. Since then it has been widely used in research across many countries and occupations.

When you retake the test, the three areas can be compared side by side with your previous result. Measuring again after you change something — adjusting your workload or coming back from time off — shows which area comes down first. If any area stays at 75 or above, or keeping up with daily life becomes hard, talk it over with a psychiatrist or a counselling professional.