Burnout is caused by adverse psychological experiences manifesting a wearing out from prolonged exposure to police work stressors. Burnout occurs due to the chronic emotional strain of interacting with people who are in crisis, troubled, and in need of advice, protection, and safety (Tessieri-Hochuli, 2018). Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment are the three core factors of burnout (Port, 2016). Burnout can affect the emotional, intellectual, physical, and social areas of police officers’ behavior and aggravate their mental health conditions (Gibson, 2020). Burnout may be seen as a response to the frequent and continued exposure to stress and is believed to be a severe health threat among police officers (Violanti et al., 2018).
Compassion fatigue can be similar to burnout, but its effects are from working with victims of crimes, accidents, and other traumatic phenomena (Papazoglou & Tuttle, 2018). Battle (2011) defines compassion fatigue as “work-related, secondary exposure to extremely stressful events and the symptoms are usually rapid in onset and can be related to one event or many events over time” (p. 2). Compassion fatigue is similar to PTSD, except that it affects the officer, not the individual experiencing the trauma (Battle, 2011). Police officers and other frontline professionals who can stay positive, take care of themselves both physically and mentally, and have a robust support system are less susceptible to compassion fatigue. Officers must be careful when suffering compassion fatigue symptoms or unresolved trauma, as they can pass the unwanted behavior on to their family and children. This can cause new stressors for the officer’s family as their children model the officer’s behavior at school and home (Battle, 2011).
The onset of burnout and compassion fatigue are often gradual and it is not usually one event that can be pinpointed as the cause. Burnout can be both psychological and physical. Some of the symptoms include insomnia, high blood pressure, other health complaints, fatigue, insomnia, excessive alcohol consumption, and marital and family conflicts (Battle, 2011& McCarty, Aldirawi, Dewald, & Palacios, 2019). Police officers and civilian police employees who have difficulty balancing their work and life issues have significantly higher burnout feelings. Police departments can help their employees with burnout by encouraging them to seek help, insist they go on vacation, and limiting or capping the amount of overtime worked (McCarty et al., 2019).