Individual health status as a resource: Analyzing associations between perceived illness symptom severity, burnout, and work engagement amongst employees with autoimmune diseases

Abstract

Epidemiological data suggest that the prevalence of autoimmune diseases is increasing. Although evidence implies that people with chronic illnesses experience higher levels of burnout, there are few available insights for developing preventative interventions. This paper builds on the job-demands resources model (JD-R) to investigate the association between impaired health, burnout, and work engagement. In two longitudinal studies, we test the effects of job demands and resources among employed people with autoimmune diseases and identify individual health status as a personal resource within the JD-R model to investigate the incremental effects of autoimmune illness severity on burnout. Study 1 investigated the effects of illness severity amongst 87 employees with inflammatory bowel diseases. Controlling for job characteristics, perceived illness severity was the strongest predictor of e burnout and predicted the vigor subdimension of work engagement. In study 2, we analyzed the effects of illness severity amongst 129 employees with multiple sclerosis and found similar effects of illness severity on both outcomes. Our studies provide important insights for employees with chronic illnesses and the organizations in which they work and give indications for theory development, future research, and the development of interventions.