Burnout in Greek Medical and Mental Health Care Workers

Abstract

AbstractJob Burnout affects job performance ability. Studies show a higher level of burnout in health professionals. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible differences in professional burnout subscales between health workers in medical and mental health sector. The sample constituted of randomly selected 240 workers in medical health sector and 217 in mental health sector, aged 39.8± 7.9 years old. Health workers from University and General Hospitals from all over Greece   participated in the study.  Maslach’s burnout inventory was used. SPSS 17.0 was used for statistics. The majority of health professionals were women. Over 50 % of workers in mental health sector showed low emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, while one third of them gave a high personal accomplishment score.  Mental health professionals showed statistically significantly lower scores in  emotional exhaustion and depersonalization , in comparison with medical sector workers. Different working environments influence the development of health care workers’ burnout