Spiritual Integrity as a Mediator Between Workload and Burnout: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Physicians in Türkiye

Workload and burnout are major concerns affecting physicians' professional functioning and well-being. This study examined whether spiritual integrity mediates the association between workload and burnout among physicians. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected through a self-administered online survey from a final analytic sample of 500 physicians working in public hospitals in Samsun, Türkiye; the survey response rate was 37.9%. The relationships among the study variables were tested using correlation analysis and bootstrap-based mediation analysis. The findings indicated a positive correlation between workload and burnout (r = .405), a negative correlation between workload and spiritual integrity (r = - .304), and a negative correlation between spiritual integrity and burnout (r = - .443). In the mediation analysis, the total association between workload and burnout was significant (B = 0.980, 95% CI [0.786, 1.175]), and the direct association remained significant after including spiritual integrity in the model (B = 0.721, 95% CI [0.525, 0.917]). The indirect association through spiritual integrity was also significant (B = 0.259, 95% CI [0.177, 0.350]), indicating partial mediation. Spiritual integrity accounted for 26.4% of the association between workload and burnout. These findings suggest that higher workload is associated with greater burnout among physicians and that this relationship may be partly explained by lower levels of spiritual integrity.