[Current status of job burnout in in-service sailors from 13 provinces and cities in China]

Objective: To investigate the current status of job burnout in in-service sailors, and to provide a basis for the development of intervention measures for job burnout in sailors. Methods: From September 2015 to May 2016, stratified cluster random sampling was used to select 6 172 in-service sailors from 13 provinces and cities as research subjects. General demographic data including age, education background, and household registration and occupational characteristics such as job position, navigating zone, and nature of employment were collected. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) was used to measure the levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, low occupational efficiency, and job burnout, and the influencing factors for job burnout were also analyzed. Results: Of all 6 172 in-service sailors, 112 (1.8%) had a positive result in emotional exhaustion, 870 (14.1%) had a positive result in depersonalization, and 3 517 (57.0%) had a positive result in low occupational efficiency. Of all sailors, 63.3% had job burnout, among whom 54.1% had mild burnout, 8.7% had moderate burnout, and 0.5% had severe burnout. There was a significant difference in the score of job burnout between the sailors with different ages, education backgrounds, types of household registration, job positions, navigating zones, ornature of employment (P<0.05). Age, education background, household registration, job position, navigating zone, and nature of employment were major influencing factors for job burnout in in-service sailors (P<0.05) , and there was a higher level of job burnout in the sailors with an age of 30-39 years, education background of junior college or above, urban registration, a job position of second mate/third engineer, a navigating zone of coastal lines, orthe nature of employment of freelance sailor. Conclusion: There is a high incidence rate of job burnout among in-service sailors, and the sailors with a young age, urban registration, a navigating zone of coastal lines, or thenature of employment of freelance sailor tend to have low occupational efficiency. Related measures should be adopted for active intervention.