[Correlation between job burnout and salivary immunoglobulin G in employees]

To investigate the influence of job burnout on salivary immunoglobulin G(IgG) concentration in employees.

In September 2014, evaluation of job burnout was performed for 186 employees in a solar photovoltaic company, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure salivary IgG concentration.

The employees with over 20 working years had a significantly higher salivary IgG concentration than those with ≤15 working years(53.80±8.22 μg/ml vs 49.93±7.97 μg/ml, P<0.05). The employees with long-day shifts had a significantly higher salivary IgG concentration than those with day-night shifts (54.98±7.62 μg/ml vs 51.85±7.94 μg/ml, P<0.05). The employees with depersonalization had a significantly lower salivary IgG concentration than those without depersonalization(50.69±9.89 vs 53.19±6.54, P<0.05). The salivary IgG concentration was negatively correlated with the scores of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and job burnout (r=-0.194, -0.152, and -0.210, all P<0.05).

Job burnout is negatively correlated with salivary IgG concentration, which tends to decrease with the increasing severity of job burnout. Therefore, salivary IgG can be used as a biomarker for the identification and evaluation of job burnout.