Stress, Trauma, and Burnout in the Health Care Workplace Practice Test 2026 - All-in-One Guide to Mastering Mental Health Challenges in Healthcare

The Job Demands-Resources model explains burnout as the result of how demanding the job is and how much support and resources are available. In healthcare, workers face high demands—heavy workload, time pressure, emotional strain from patient care, and physical exhaustion. If these demands are met with limited resources—such as insufficient staffing, inadequate supervisor support, limited autonomy, insufficient equipment, or poor access to training—the strain can accumulate and lead to burnout.

Resources play a protective role by buffering the impact of these demands. When there are strong resources, even high demands can be managed more effectively, and workers may feel more engaged rather than exhausted. Conversely, balancing or increasing resources to match or exceed demands can reduce burnout risk and support better health outcomes for both staff and patients.

The correct statement captures this dynamic: high job demands plus low resources drive burnout, and resources can buffer strain; aligning demands with adequate resources reduces burnout risk. The other options misstate the model by implying burnout is due to personal resilience alone, or that resources cause burnout, or that organizational factors don’t influence burnout. In reality, organizational factors and the interaction between demands and resources are central to burnout in healthcare.