Burnout is an occupation-dependent syndrome arising from chronic workplace stress, energy depletion, or exhaustion. Its first description was in 1974 [1]. In 2019, the World Health Organization recognized that burnout results in mental distance, negativism, or cynicism by reducing professional efficacy and compromising work-related activity [2]. In 2021, a 50-expert, 29-country panel assessed 88 unique definitions, reaching a Delphi harmonized consensus that “occupational burnout or occupational physical AND emotional exhaustion state is an exhaustion due to prolonged exposure to work-related problems” [3]. A well-researched psychological phenomenon [4,5], burnout became a central focus of psychological research during COVID-19, with over 693,000 results generated from an author-conducted Google Scholar search of burnout on 30 September 2025.

Research is work that is creative, systematic, and intrinsically motivating [6], undertaken to increase and devise new applications of original, rigorous, and significant [7] knowledge [8]. The consideration is that it is original if it is novel within the standards of peer review [9] representing a primary goal of research [10]. Rigor requires intellectual integrity [11] in purpose, methodology, results, and assessment to make it accountable [12]. Significance is an assessment that provides intellectually deep social value [13]. When limiting a Google Scholar search to “burnout in researchers” again on 30 September 2025, the returns amounted to only eight. Of these, the first four are publications by this author three peer-reviewed [14-16], and one pre-print [17] of [15]. Although [16] considers researcher burnout, it is the period before COVID-19. Relevant results from the COVID-19 pandemic for the eight included studies are two: [14] and [15] (see Supplementary S1). Modifying the search to “researcher burnout” produced 69 results. However, only 12 of these were empirical studies of researcher burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic, with [15] included among them (see Supplementary S1). Additionally, of these 12, seven alone considered the effect of COVID-19 on researcher burnout [15]. Thus, in total, there are nine publications [18-24].

Table 1: The nine empirical studies on researcher burnout affected by COVID-19. They reveal twelve different effects. Most of the effects are unique to each publication. None of these publications identifies COVID-19 as affecting research confusion on researcher burnout.

Confusion was defined in 1990 as verbal or nonverbal disorientation regarding time, place, or persons in the environment, resulting in inappropriate communication or communication unusual for the person [25]. Confusion can be psychosomatic when associated with burnout [26,27]. Psychosomatic symptoms affect physiological functioning against the background of psycho-emotional stress [28]. One such stress is burnout [29].

Additionally, COVID-19 had a developmental effect on stress and worry [30]. Although there is extensive recent research on the relationship between psychosomatic conditions and burnout [31-35], no investigations consider whether COVID-19 causes burnout confusion in researchers as a psychosomatic symptom.

Over the ten years of offering the author-designed and facilitated program, two varieties helped reduce health researcher burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were the Health Narratives Research Group (HeNReG), available online from the start of the pandemic [36] until April 2022, and the Health Narratives Research Process (HeNReP) a one-on-one online offering from October 2022 until the end of the pandemic, May 2023 [37].

Previous publications on the HeNReG [14-16], the HeNReP [42], and both together [43] provide information on the content and operation of these interventions from 2018 to 2024 [38-41].

This work will not repeat these findings. Instead, this study aims to examine self-descriptions, feedback forms, and Facebook entries regarding the burnout reduction program to determine whether the participants recognized COVID-19 as a cause of their reported confusion.

The purpose is to provide an account of the effects of COVID-19 on researcher burnout concerning confusion as a psychosomatic condition in this program to establish literature on the results of researcher burnout during COVID-19.

Narrative inquiry has a dual purpose (1) as a methodology through historical analysis [43], and (2) as a conceptual framework that focuses on stories or descriptions of a series of events [44]. Although a consensus on narrative inquiry is lacking [45], there is agreement that it challenges accepted meanings by deconstructing values, assumptions, and beliefs [46] by representing a form of interpretative phenomenology [47].

Beyond merely describing experiences, it reveals their meaning by understanding the personal and cultural significance of participant experiences. Achieving this result to understand the co-constructed nature of the data analysis necessitates reflexive dialogue between the researcher and participant, with the researcher acknowledging their interpretative role in the research process. The individual is the unit of analysis unexpectedly uncommon in most psychological research methods [48].

Considering the two publications by the author with data on the two programs, [15] and [42], (1) there was a counting of (a) the number of participants and, of these, (b) those who expressed confusion as noted in those publications, and (2) the author calculated the total participant percentage of those expressing confusion.

Regarding their health-related research, during the first meeting for both programs, the author/facilitator received participant self-descriptions. These were collated into a single document each academic year and distributed to all yearly participants. The intent in distributing this document was to help participants relate their session responses to the prompts that followed. To determine what participants wrote about themselves in these yearly archived documents, the author examined each document of self-descriptions to identify any phrases by participants that indicated confusion regarding their research.

Once all 28 prompts had a response on ending the HeNReG or the HeNReP, the feedback forms examined were those completed by participants. These feedback forms were yearly online Google Forms created by the author/facilitator that each participant received. The feedback forms included a Likert-scale component for some questions. Other questions required a short answer. The relevant data for this study are the short-answer question responses.

Short-answer questions that may have provided responses relating research confusion were in the replies to three feedback form questions: (1) In what ways was the HeNReG(P) valuable to you as a researcher?, (2) How might the HeNReG(P) be of help to you in the future?, and (3) Do you have other thoughts/comments on your experience as a participant in the HeNReG(P) this term, especially as a result of COVID-19? To extract relevant data, the author read the answers from the returned feedback forms, looking for phrases expressing confusion.

The Facebook results are those transferred by the author/facilitator into the yearly-created private Facebook group for either the HeNReG or HeNReP. They are from the answers that participants sent to the author/facilitator through the Messenger app. On receiving them from each participant, the author/facilitator transferred them to the Facebook group. Verification of their transfer accuracy was by the participant on their posting to the private Facebook group.

To gather data on research confusion, the author accessed each private Facebook group, searching all the participant responses to “why” questions that the author recalled as expressing research confusion. As such, there may be additional replies to prompts on these Facebook entries throughout the 28 sessions that express confusion. Since the aim was to find examples of the acknowledgement of research confusion by participants, not to identify all possible instances, the consideration was that limiting the search of each of the private Facebook groups to responses to the “why” question was sufficient.

Future research on similar COVID-19 timed burnout-reduction programs is necessary to determine whether researchers expressed confusion regarding their investigations. If so, whether they stated any effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their confusion is relevant. As pandemic conditions are over, this type of research must be historical, examining data recorded by the organizers of these programs. The point of these interventions may not have been to investigate researcher confusion, and even if recognized, the significance of confusion regarding burnout may not have been evident. Currently, few studies reexamine psychological data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic for additional insights [56-58]. Yet, such reexaminations do exist, demonstrating the possibility.

The significance of research confusion for the researchers who participated in either the HeNReG or HeNReP suggests that research confusion is a prominent issue for researchers that requires alleviation beyond considerations of pandemic effects or, perhaps, even burnout. Investigating this matter may be most productively accomplished by an examination through psychological theories.

One applicable theory is self-efficacy. A 2015 examination of research confusion [47] argued that sense can be made of this confusion in an introductory physics class through the perspective of self-efficacy theory. Support for this research direction is a 2023 publication regarding confusion in post-secondary students [48]. Yet, however similar, students are not career researchers. Therefore, two recent studies of career researchers that consider the value of self-efficacy theory in interpreting research confusion are more relevant [49,50].

Another psychological theory that may be effective for investigating research confusion is coping theory. It is one used frequently regarding burned-out healthcare practitioners during COVID-19 [51,52]. In process-related coping theory [53,54], coping is a relationship between the objective environment and individual focus. The basis is the 1985 presentation of process-related coping by Lazarus [55], including a 1993 refinement by the same author [53]. From the adopted point of view, the individual cognitively appraises the sensed environment. If the appraisal is negative, the selection is between emotion-focused and problem-focused coping responses, although these foci are not exclusive. The use of several coping strategies can be simultaneous [56]. Once the pandemic prolonged, the emotion-focused coping that oncologists (for example) experienced was detachment [51]. However, this coping strategy was not one used at the beginning of COVID-19. Problem-focused coping was the first form of coping. These methods lack investigation for research confusion with burnout—they may be relevant.

Burnout represented a significant problem for all employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental healthcare practitioners [57], nurses [58], gig workers [59], corporate professionals [60], and working parents [61] were the focus of the studies, investigating whether experiencing the psychological flow investigated by Csikszentmihalyi might avoid it. Psychological flow was found to be a form of mental immunity to burnout, similar to biological immunity [57] statistically significant in quantitative studies and promising for mitigating burnout in qualitative ones [62]. With the result of burnout avoidance, psychological flow was possible during COVID-19 for various employee types [62]. This outcome suggests that focusing on achieving flow in the workplace during pandemics would diminish the incidence of employee burnout. Whether attaining psychological flow would reduce research confusion has yet to be investigated.

The act of researching may itself produce confusion by questioning values with, for example, traditional religious understanding and practice. About the increasing role of AI in research, this confusion may be especially concerning regarding religious experience and psychological behavioral patterns [63]. The results of this study suggest that research on spiritual confusion requires frameworks of individual religious psychology with institutional adaptation to the technological change created by AI. Simultaneously, developmental patterns that influence spiritual–technological integration require acknowledgment. However, psychologists receive little or no training in spiritual issues, partially because there is no agreement on spiritual competencies or training guidelines [64]. Developing such competencies and training guidelines is necessary before the relationship between research and spiritual confusion, as an aspect of researcher burnout, can be studied for soundness and validity.

Dysregulation of Mood, Energy, and Social Rhythms Syndrome (DYMERS) [65] is the term for the combination of poor sleep, behavioral, and social rhythms that affects burnout levels. During the pandemic, healthcare professionals were the focus of DYMERS investigations [66]. From this perspective, research confusion may be more a function of poor biological/social rhythms than psychological disturbances. COVID-19 altered these rhythms [67]. Therefore, although the HeNReG and HeNReP participants during the pandemic did not consider COVID-19 as a cause of their research confusion, they may have been unaware that COVID-19 had altered their biological/social rhythms. Research on the effect of DYMERS on burnout remains in its infancy [68].

Encouraging team mindfulness to reduce burnout is an effective means among health researchers. A construct developed in 2017 [15,69], it represents “a shared belief among team members that their interactions are defined by a non-judgmental awareness and an attention in processing within-team experiences” [70] The finding is that it enhances work-related personal fulfilment [71]. Team mindfulness is evident with collective, regular, non-judgmental acknowledgement of each team member’s experiences, tasks, objectives, roles, and structures. It reduces burnout in groups [72] by promoting trust among team members, which has positive effects on employee well-being and performance [73,74] especially during COVID-19 [75,76] when studies on trait mindfulness, as something that can be learned [77], were conducted regarding COVID-19 [75,77,78]. Team mindfulness, like trait mindfulness, can help team members respond with conscious awareness to pandemic challenges and accept the restrictive situation to a greater degree, unlike maladaptive coping strategies such as blaming [78]. Apart from studies by this author [15,17,69], there is a paucity of research on team mindfulness in reducing burnout among health researchers. There is no research regarding how team mindfulness might help alleviate confusion regarding researcher burnout.