Sociodemographic and occupational risk factors associated with the development of different burnout types: the cross-sectional University of Zaragoza study

doi:10.1186/1471-244X-11-49

BMC Psychiatry. 2011; 11: 49.

Published online 2011 March 29. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-11-49

PMCID: PMC3074532

Sociodemographic and occupational risk factors associated with the development of different burnout types: the cross-sectional University of Zaragoza study

Jesús Montero-Marín,^1,^2,⁷ Javier García-Campayo,^1,^7,⁸ Marta Fajó-Pascual,² José Miguel Carrasco,³ Santiago Gascón,^4,⁷ Margarita Gili,^5,⁷ and Fermín Mayoral-Cleries^6,⁷

¹Department of Psychiatry. University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

²Faculty of Health and Sports. University of Zaragoza, Huesca, Spain

³Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (Aragon Health Sciences Institute), Zaragoza, Spain

⁴Department of Psychology and Sociology. University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain

⁵Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut (IUNICS). University of Balearic Islands, Spain

⁶Hospital Regional Universitario Carlos Hay, Malaga, Spain

⁷REDIAPP "Red de Investigación en Actividades Preventivas y Promoción de la Salud" RD06/0018/0017, Research Network on Preventative Activities and Health Promotion

⁸Psychiatry Service. Miguel Servet Hospital. Zaragoza, Spain

Corresponding author.

Jesús Montero-Marín: jmontero/at/unizar.es; Javier García-Campayo: jgarcamp/at/arrakis.es; Marta Fajó-Pascual: mfajo/at/unizar.es; José Miguel Carrasco: jmcarrasco.iacs/at/aragon.es; Santiago Gascón: sgascon/at/unizar.es; Margarita Gili: mgili/at/uib.es; Fermín Mayoral-Cleries: fermin.mayoral.sspa/at/juntadeandalucia.es

Received July 4, 2010; Accepted March 29, 2011.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Abstract

Background

Three different burnout types have been described: The "frenetic" type describes involved and ambitious subjects who sacrifice their health and personal lives for their jobs; the "underchallenged" type describes indifferent and bored workers who fail to find personal development in their jobs and the "worn-out" in type describes neglectful subjects who feel they have little control over results and whose efforts go unacknowledged. The study aimed to describe the possible associations between burnout types and general sociodemographic and occupational characteristics.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was carried out on a multi-occupational sample of randomly selected university employees (n = 409). The presence of burnout types was assessed by means of the "Burnout Clinical Subtype Questionnaire (BCSQ-36)", and the degree of association between variables was assessed using an adjusted odds ratio (OR) obtained from multivariate logistic regression models.

Results

Individuals working more than 40 hours per week presented with the greatest risk for "frenetic" burnout compared to those working fewer than 35 hours (adjusted OR = 5.69; 95% CI = 2.52-12.82; p < 0.001). Administration and service personnel presented the greatest risk of "underchallenged" burnout compared to teaching and research staff (adjusted OR = 2.85; 95% CI = 1.16-7.01; p = 0.023). Employees with more than sixteen years of service in the organisation presented the greatest risk of "worn-out" burnout compared to those with less than four years of service (adjusted OR = 4.56; 95% CI = 1.47-14.16; p = 0.009).

Conclusions

This study is the first to our knowledge that suggests the existence of associations between the different burnout subtypes (classified according to the degree of dedication to work) and the different sociodemographic and occupational characteristics that are congruent with the definition of each of the subtypes. These results are consistent with the clinical profile definitions of burnout syndrome. In addition, they assist the recognition of distinct profiles and reinforce the idea of differential characterisation of the syndrome for more effective treatment.

Keywords: burnout, subtypes, risk factors, BCSQ-36, university

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