Adaptation and Validation of a Burnout Inventory in a Survey of the Staff of a Correctional Institution in Bulgaria

Abstract

CONCLUSION: With the validation herein presented we offer a highly reliable Bulgarian variant of Boyko's method for burnout assessment and research. BACKGROUND: Burnout syndrome is a phenomenon that seems to be studied globally in relation to all types of populations. The staff in the system of correctional institutions in Bulgaria, however, is oddly left out of this tendency. There is no standardized model in Bulgaria that can be used to detect possible susceptibility to professional burnout. The methods available at present only register the irreversible changes that have already set in the functioning of the individual. V. Boyko's method for burnout assessment allows clinicians to use individual approach to patients and affords easy comparability of results with data from other psychodiagnostic instruments. Adaptation of the assessment instruments to fit the specificities of a study population (linguistic, ethno-cultural, etc.) is obligatory so that the instrument could be correctly used and yield valid results. Validation is one of the most frequently used technique to achieve this. AIM: The aim of the present study was to adapt and validate V. Boyko's burnout inventory for diagnosing burnout and assessment of the severity of the burnout syndrome in correctional officers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a pilot study with 50 officers working in the Plovdiv Regional Correction Facility by test-retest survey performed at an interval of 2 to 4 months. All participants completed the adapted questionnaire translated into Bulgarian voluntarily and anonymously. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v.17. RESULTS: We found a mild-to-strong statistically significant correlation (P<0.01) across all subscales between the most frequently used questionnaire for assessing the burnout syndrome, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the tool we propose here. The high Cronbach's α coefficient (α=0.94) and Spearman-Brown coefficient (rsb=0.86), and the low mean between-item correlation (r=0.30) demonstrated the instrument's good reliability and validity.