Burnout as a Mediator Between Employee Wellbeing and Performance in Healthcare: A Systematic Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54518/fid.4.1.2026.1410Keywords:
Burnout, Employee Performance, Mental Health, Workplace Well-beingAbstract
This systematic literature review investigates how burnout mediates the relationship between employee well-being and job performance in the healthcare sector, a relationship that remains empirically underexplored despite strong theoretical foundations. From 916 initial records, 19 peer-reviewed articles (2021–2026) were analyzed following PRISMA guidelines. Only four studies (21.1%) explicitly tested burnout as a mediator: Sun et al. (2022), Tu et al. (2022), Wang et al. (2022), and Naveed et al. (2025), all confirmed significant indirect effects. The remaining studies positioned burnout as an outcome or direct predictor without mediation. Findings confirm that burnout serves as a key psychological mechanism linking job demands, low satisfaction, and poor well-being to reduced performance, yet the scarcity of mediation studies reveals a major research gap. Burnout consistently mediates the well-being–performance relationship in healthcare. Promising interventions include self-leadership training, supportive supervision, and team psychological safety. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs and formal mediation analyses to establish causality and strengthen evidence.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Kahlil Raihan Al-Zier Badrudin, Salsabila Alteza Prameswari, Fuad Mas'ud

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