Burnout in health care and education workers: The role of situational and individual factors

• Main Authors: Popov Stanislava, Latovljev Mina, Nedić Aleksandra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology 2015-01-01
• Series: Psihološka Istraživanja
• Subjects: burnout; emotional exhaustion; depersonalisation; reduced personal accomplishment
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0352-7379/2015/0352-73791501005P.pdf

The aim of the study was to examine the level of the burnout syndrome in the sample of teachers and health care workers. Another aim was to investigate the relationship between burnout and the demographic, personality and job characteristics in order to identify the most influential factors of its occurrence and maintenance. Burnout was defined as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment, especially prevalent in humanistic professions. The instrument which was used for the operationalisation of burnout is the most widely used instrument for assessing this construct empirically: the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The convenient sample of 186 respondents from Novi Sad and Zrenjanin (100 health care workers and 86 teachers) participated in the study. The results indicate a moderate to high level of burnout measured in this sample. A higher level of Emotional exhaustion and Depersonalisation was found in health care workers. The results of hierarchical regression analysis have shown that Neuroticism and Extraversion were the most significant predictors of burnout among individual factors. Conflicts with colleagues and the management as well as dissatisfaction with the organisation at the workplace were the most influential predictors of burnout among situational factors. The results are explained by the personality traits from the Big Five Plus Two Questionnair e, by the specific characteristics of the examined professions, and by the comparison with previous studies in the area.