A meta-analysis of burnout with job demands, resources, and attitudes

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Abstract

A meta-analysis was conducted on job demands, resources, and attitudes and their relation with burnout in regard to the COR theory. The version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory used was explored as a moderator of the aforementioned variables. Results suggest that higher demands, lower resources, and lower adaptive organizational attitudes are associated with burnout. In particular, results of the current study show stronger relations than previous meta-analysis (Lee & Ashforth, 1996) have suggested. The scale type also provided some evidence of moderation, with stronger effects found in samples that utilized the MBI-HSS. Implications of the findings in relation to the COR theory and future research directions to clarify the relation between job demands, job resources, organizational attitudes and burnout are discussed.

Section snippets

Job demands, resources, attitudes, and burnout: a meta-analysis

Burnout is an important issue in the psychological literature. Research has demonstrated that burnout can result in anxiety, depression, drops in self-esteem, substance abuse, decreased performance, and increased health problems (Maslach et al., 2001, Melamed et al., 2006, Taris, 2008). It is also seen as contagious and has a negative spillover effect on people's home lives (Maslach, 2003, Maslach et al., 2001). Burnout is a psychological phenomenon of prolonged exhaustion and disinterest,

Method

I used meta-analyses to examine the hypothesized relations of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment with job demands, resources and attitudes. Below is a discussion of the literature search strategy and the analytic methods used to conduct the meta-analysis.

Results

The relation between employee perceptions of job demands, resources, and attitudes with the burnout subscales were ran using meta-analyses. The results of these analyses are reported in Table 1 and are discussed in the following sections.

Discussion

The current meta-analysis sought to explore burnout through meta-analytic technique. The study demonstrated that resources, demands, and organizational attitudes are all related to burnout. Stronger relations were found in the current study than previous meta-analyses. The current relations are less susceptible to Type I errors considering that the number of samples used in most primary analyses was larger than 10. In addition, results suggest that some of the relations of job demands,

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