Examining Burnout and Its Correlates Among Rehabilitation Counselors: Implications for Research and Practice

Burnout of rehabilitation counselors often leads to job dissatisfaction and turnover. The Counselor Burnout Inventory (CBI) provides a work-specific tool to explore the burnout of professional counselors; however, few scholars in rehabilitation counseling have examined this scale. In this study, we examine the burnout of 147 rehabilitation counselors using the CBI and compare the findings with prior research reporting CBI scores using an aggregated sample of 1,997 professional counselors from different counseling fields. We further explore the score differences of participants on each subscale of the CBI based on gender, race, work experience, certification status, caseload, and quality of supervision. The results revealed higher burnout scores in the current sample than in the aggregated one. Moreover, gender, caseload, and the quality of supervision were found to differentiate participants’ burnout scores on the CBI. Implications for research, teaching, supervision, and practice are discussed.