Factors Related to Burnout in Arab Social and Community Development Workers

Factors Related to Burnout in Arab Social and Community Development Workers

Bshr Dayani

2017

The nature of social and community development work leaves the workers at the risk of experiencing burnout and emotional difficulties. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between burnout and empathy, emotional dissonance, self-compassion and type of work (voluntary, paid) amongst social and community development workers. We hypothesised that high levels of empathy, high levels of self-compassion, low levels of emotional dissonance and fewer hours of paid work would be significant predictors of low levels of burnout. The sample consisted of 315 participants from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia. Participants completed an online survey that includes the following measures: Maslach Burnout Inventory, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Self-compassion Scale, and Emotional Dissonance Subscale from Frankfurt Emotion Work Scale. Correlation and regression analyses were performed to examine the relationships between the variables. The findings showed that empathy was not significantly correlated to burnout, however a positive correlation was observed between personal accomplishment and perspective taking. Self-compassion was strongly and negatively correlated with burnout. Emotional dissonance was negatively correlated with burnout, and it was the strongest predictor of burnout amongst the studied variables. Paid work hours were positively related to emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment while voluntary work hours were not related to any of burnout components. The present study indicates novel findings, and contributes to the literature by highlighting the key role of personal emotional regulation in predicting burnout amongst social and community development workers.

personal emotional regulation
burnout

Participants completed an online Qualtrics-based survey which includes the following four measures:
Burnout. The scores of burnout were assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). The MBI-HSS is a 22-item self-reported measure that comprises three subscales: Emotional Exhaustion (9 items), Depersonalisation (5 items) and Personal Accomplishment (8 items). Emotional Exhaustion (EE) refers to the feeling of being drained emotionally and physically. Depersonalisation (DP) stands for the negative inordinately attitude towards job-related aspects. Personal Accomplishment (PA) refers to the feelings of efficiency, productivity and competence achievements in the job. (Maslach et al., 2001; Maslach, & Jackson, 1996). All answers are rated on a seven-point scale that ranges from 0 “never” to 6 “every day”. Subscales produce separate scores that are calculated as the following: for EE and DP scores the high scores represent high levels of burnout. For PA the high scores represent low levels of burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).
Empathy. The scores of empathy were assessed by Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) scale. The IRI is a multidimensional scale that has 28 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale that ranges from 1 “Does not describe me well” to 5 “Describes me very well”. The measure comprised of four 7-item sub-scales. Only three subscales were used for the study. These subscales are Perspective Taking (PT) which represents the ability to conceive the psychological perspective of others. Empathic Concern (EC) measures the feelings of warmth and compassion and towards others. Personal Distress (PD) looks into "self-oriented" feelings of stress and apprehension as a reaction to the miserable conditions of others (Davis, 1980). Previous studies have reported high levels of validity and reliability of the scale (Davis, 1983; 1994; Fernández, Dufey, & Kramp, 2011).
Emotional dissonance. The scores of emotional dissonance were measured using the subscale of the Frankfurt Emotion Work Scale. This scale has been extensively validated, and it is a five-item Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). A sample item is: “How often in your job do you have to display emotions that do not agree with your true feelings?” (Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, & Isic, 1999). The Cronbach alpha for the scale was .848 (Kundu, S., & Gaba, 2017).
Self-compassion. The scores of self-compassion were measured using the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)which consisted of 26 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “Almost never” (1) to “Almost always” (5). The scale asks the participants on how often do they behave in the stated manner. An example statement is “I’m disapproving and judgmental about my own flaws and inadequacies”. The scale has six subscales: Self-Kindness, Self-Judgment, Common Humanity, Isolation, Mindfulness and Over-identified scales. The instrument has high inter-correlations between each of the six subscales, and it has an excellent internal consistency reliability and a good test-retest reliability. The coefficient alpha of the scale was .92 (Neff, 2003a).
To ensure the maximum validity of the responses, a safety question was added to each questionnaire to ensure that the respondent is paying attention and not providing random answers. A sample item “Some people might provide random answers for this survey, which effects the research results very negatively. Just to make sure that you are not answering randomly, please select the answer number 1 (Never). Thank you”.
For the purpose of the study, both Arabic and English versions were used in all the measures. The original language of the instruments was English. For the MBI-HSS the Arabic version was adopted from Hamaideh, (2011) who translated the entire instrument into Arabic and reported high internal consistency, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .84 for the total scale, .91 for EE, .84 for DP and .88 for PA. For the current study, the internal consistency was .86. Emotional dissonance, IRI and self-compassion scales were translated into Arabic by a professional English/Arabic translator. Additionally, a backward translation was done by another professional English/Arabic translator, and the two versions were compared by the researcher. All the translated measures were accurate and correspondent with the original English scales. The translated forms reported high internal consistency which was calculated by the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The internal consistency was .86 for self-compassion, .76 for IRI and .70 for emotional dissonance.
Design
The study was comprised of one online Qualtrics-based survey that was sent to all the participants. Based on the study hypotheses the independent variable is burnout, and the dependent variables are self-compassion, empathy, emotional dissonance and type of work.
Procedure
Ethical approval for the study was acquired from the ethics committee at Lancaster University. Participants were initially told that the study was designed to investigate what pressures do workers in social and community development field face, and how do they feel about their work, themselves, people they work with and others in general. The actual aim was hidden initially to ensure maximum genuine and unbiased answers. Information sheets included the study objectives, description of the measures and how much time each one takes, the confidentiality of the data, participation eligibility, the voluntary participation, and the researcher contact information.
Consent forms were displayed on the online survey before the initiation of the measures. Additionally, debriefing forms were given to the participants following the completion of the survey. Debriefing forms stated the actual purpose of the study as well as the study design. The survey was completed within 20-30 minutes approximately.
Analysis
Pearson’s Correlation and regression analysis were conducted to examine the study’s hypotheses. Regression analysis was chosen according to the nature of the variables which were continuous variables. Additionally, the number of paid and voluntary work hours were included as covariates, since dividing the participants into two groups (volunteers and workers) was not possible because most of the participants were doing both voluntary and paid work at the same time. All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics software (Version 23).

Lancaster University

data/SPSS.sav

Dayani2017

John Towse

Open

English

data

LA1 4YF

Elena Geangu

MSc

Social Psychology

366 responses were collected, 349 were valid responses after screening the safety questions (which are explained in the measures section). Responses from non-Arabic countries were excluded, and only 315 responses were considered for the study to ensure the maximum homogeneity of the sample. Participants were 226 (71.7%) from Syria, 25 (7.9%) from Egypt, 23 (7.3%) from Lebanon, 22 (7.0%) from Tunisia, and 19 (6.0%) from Jordan. The sample comprised of 315 participants, 119 of them were males (37.8%), and 196 were females (62.2%).

Correlation
regression.