Validation of the Burden Transfer Inventory-abbreviated and examination across veterinary medicine positions and settings in the United States.

Background: Burden transfer, when veterinary client caregiver burden underlies stressful encounters with providers, elevates risk for occupational distress in veterinary medicine. To date, burden transfer has been primarily examined in veterinarians working in general practice, using methods that are time consuming. The current work validates an abbreviated Burden Transfer Inventory (BTI-A) and explores burden transfer across positions of employment and veterinary settings.

Methods: Participants completed online measures of burden transfer, stress and burnout. A BTI-A with items representing each BTI domain was created with an initial validation sample (n = 1151 veterinarians). Confirmatory psychometric analyses were conducted in a cross-validation sample (n = 440 veterinarians and support staff), followed by exploration of the BTI and BTI-A across veterinary settings and position of employment.

Results: The BTI-A correlated with the full-length BTI (r = 0.89-0.96) shows good internal consistency (α = 0.72-0.88) and 1-month test-retest reliability (r = 0.69-0.74). The BTI-A correlated significantly (p < 0.001) with stress and burnout. Exploratory comparisons suggested group differences including greater reactivity in general compared to specialty referral/emergency practice (p = 0.02).

Conclusion: The BTI-A can be used in place of the original measure when brevity is important. Use of the BTI-A may help guide allied mental health professionals in providing support for wellbeing in veterinary healthcare team members.