Associations between emotional exhaustion, social capital, workload, and latitude in decision-making among...

Many people working in human services in Western countries suffer from burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal performance. Prevention of emotional exhaustion (the first phase of burnout) constitutes a great challenge because emotional exhaustion may cause increasing turnover rates in staff and lead to a lesser quality of care. Prevention of emotional exhaustion requires knowledge of its predictors. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between emotional exhaustion, social capital, workload, and latitude in decision-making among German professionals working in the care of persons with intellectual and physical disabilities.

The study was based on a survey in a sheltered workshop and 5 homes for disabled persons with 175 professionals. Burnout was measured with the German version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). A multivariate logistic regression analysis was computed.

Logistic regression identified the following three significant predictors of emotional exhaustion in the sample: workload (OR, 4.192; CI, 2.136-8.227), latitude in decision-making (OR, 0.306; CI, 0.115-0.811), and male gender (OR, 4.123; CI, 1.796-9.462). Nagelkerke's Pseudo-R(2) was 0.344.

The results of this study demonstrate that specific factors in work organization are associated with emotional exhaustion. Taking into account sociodemographic changes and the upcoming challenges for human services professionals, the results underline the importance of considering aspects of organization at the workplace to prevent burnout. Specific circumstances of male employees must be considered.