How this assessment works

What the test measures, the published research the framework draws on, how scores and risk bands are calculated — and the limitations you should know before reading anything into a result.

What this assessment is — and is not

Know Your Limits is a structured self-assessment of burnout risk. It is designed as a first filter: a fast, honest way to gauge whether your current state resembles the patterns occupational health research associates with burnout, and where the depletion is concentrated. It is not a diagnostic instrument, it is not a substitute for clinical judgement, and a score — high or low — is information to bring to a professional, not a conclusion.

This tool is independently built and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any of the researchers or institutions whose published work is cited below.

The five dimensions

The assessment measures five dimensions. The first four correspond to the core dimensions identified in modern burnout research — in particular the framework underlying the Burnout Assessment Tool developed by Schaufeli, Desart and De Witte (2020), which reconceptualised burnout around exhaustion, mental distance, and cognitive and emotional impairment. A fifth dimension, recovery and sleep, is added because recovery capacity is the mechanism through which chronic stress either resolves or compounds.

How the questionnaire works

• 28 core statements, answered on a five-point frequency scale (Never – Rarely – Sometimes – Often – Always), distributed across the five dimensions.
• Up to three additional sector statements for contexts with distinctive burnout profiles (healthcare and care work, founders and the self-employed, students, and public-sector roles), reflecting sector-specific patterns documented in the literature.
• All items are phrased in the same direction (no reverse-scored items) — a deliberate simplification that favours clarity for a self-administered, multilingual tool over psychometric convention.

Scoring

Each answer maps to a 0–4 value. Dimension scores are the mean of their items, rescaled to 0–100%. The overall score is the mean across dimensions. Results are presented in four bands: Low (below 30%), Moderate (30–54%), High (55–74%) and Critical (75% and above). A suggestion to consider professional support is shown when the overall score reaches the High band or when two or more dimensions individually reach 60% — a deliberately conservative trigger.

The bands are pragmatic thresholds for a self-screening tool, not clinically validated cut-offs. They are designed to be directionally honest: to distinguish "little sign of a problem" from "this pattern deserves attention" from "seek support."

Honest limitations

• Self-report has limits. Burnout affects self-perception itself; people tend to normalise their state. Scores reflect how you see yourself today.
• This is a screening pattern, not a diagnosis. Exhaustion, low mood and poor concentration have many causes — including depression, sleep disorders, and physical conditions — that only a clinician can distinguish.
• The added fifth dimension and the scoring bands are design choices of this tool, informed by the literature but not identical to any validated instrument.
• Translations vary in review depth. Core languages have been reviewed; others are provided for accessibility and may contain imperfections. English is the reference version.

Privacy by design

All scoring runs in your browser. Answers are never transmitted or stored — there is no server-side processing, no accounts, and no assessment database. This is verifiable: the entire application is client-side code.