How Sleep and Burnout Interact in the Treatment of Poor Sleep

Abstract: This thesis explores the interaction between sleep and burnout in the treatment of poor sleep. Sleep isvital for overall health and recovery from daily life demands, while stress is closely related to sleepdisruptions. Chronic insomnia can develop from sleep disturbances caused by stress. Burnout,characterized by emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, and cognitive weariness, is a prevalentconsequence of chronic stress. Sleep quality is greatly influenced by various factors and has a significantimpact on overall well-being. This study investigates how sleep quality and burnout at baseline of ashort, student-led, group treatment, affect sleep quality as a treatment outcome. It hypothesizes thathigher stress and poorer sleep at baseline would predict unchanged or impaired sleep qualityimmediately after treatment, and that poor sleep and burnout would individually have a positiverelationship with sleep as a treatment outcome. The data for this study is obtained from a sleepintervention program conducted by students from the Master's Program in Clinical Psychology at UmeåUniversity in collaboration with Region Västerbotten. The participants completed questionnairesassessing their background information, stress levels, burnout, and sleep quality at baseline and aftertreatment. The findings showed no interaction effects between sleep and burnout but indicate thatpatients with poorer sleep at intake may not benefit from the treatment program whereas high burnoutdoes not affect the treatment outcome. The short, student-led, group treatment does not seem tobenefit people with severe sleep problems.