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Article History

Received: 9 February 2025

Accepted: 12 November 2025

First Online: 25 November 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: All procedures complied with the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, national legislation of Ukraine, and Berdyansk State Pedagogical University (BSPU) regulations. The study began as a single-wave, minimal-risk, anonymous online survey of adult university staff and received prior approval from the BSPU Ethics Committee under Protocol No. 05/2022 (covering Wave 1). After deciding to extend the project into a multi-wave design, we submitted an amended protocol for prospective review. The Ethics Committee approved the continuation under Protocol No. 12/2023, which authorised Waves 2–3 and confirmed the ethical permissibility of analysing the Wave 1 dataset collected under informed consent and the same data-protection safeguards.

: In each wave, participants viewed an information page describing the study purpose, procedures, voluntary nature of participation, the right to skip questions, and the right to withdraw before submission without penalty. Electronic informed consent was documented via a mandatory tick-box with server time-stamp immediately before accessing the questionnaire. No data were collected from individuals who did not give their consent. Data collection occurred during: Wave 1 (01 July 2022–30 July 2022), Wave 2 (04 January 2023–31 January 2023), and Wave 3 (04 January 2024–31 January 2024). The privacy of the participants has been safeguarded at all stages of the research. No direct identifiers were collected; IP addresses and contact details were not stored. Free-text responses were screened to remove potentially identifying content. Data were used exclusively for academic purposes and analysed only in aggregate to protect confidentiality. The study posed no more than minimal risk. The principal foreseeable discomfort was possible emotional strain when reflecting on burnout-related experiences. The information sheet signposted freely available psychological support resources, and participants were encouraged to seek support if needed.