Religious Belief and Burnout

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the connection between religious belief and burnout in a sample of hospital nurses in Hungary. There is a growing body of evidence that religion can influence physical and mental health in many positive ways. However, despite the large number of studies in the field of religion and mental health, as well as in the field of burnout, the relationship between religion and burnout, to the authors' best knowledge, has not been studied yet. The authors' primary aim was to investigate if any link can be proved on empirical bases between these two fields. The sample consisted of 94 nurses, who had been working beside sick-bed for at least 5 years. The measures for religiosity were frequency of church attendance, subjective religiosity, and the Post-Critical Belief Scale (PCBS) distinguishing four types of religious attitudes along the two dimensions of inclusion vs. exclusion of transcendence and symbolic vs. literal interpretation. Burnout was assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Results showed no significant connection between burnout and either age or with the number of years spent at work. On the other hand, data from all the three measures of religiosity provided evidence for significant linear negative relationship between religiosity and burnout: there was a statistically significant negative relationship between subjective importance of religiosity and burnout, as well as between the frequency of church attendance and burnout. Regarding religious attitudes measured by PCBS, the two attitude types characterised by the inclusion of transcendence were negatively linked to burnout scores. These results suggest that religiosity might play an important role as a protective factor against burnout with hospital nurses.

Spirituality and Prayer on Teacher Stress and Burnout in an Italian Cohort: A Pilot, Before-After Controlled Study

“…Chandler (2010) has underlined the role that prayer time plays in preventing burnout in ministry. Our study is also in agreement with findings of past research showing how religiousness is associated with low levels of burnout in helping professions like medical students (Wachholtz and Rogoff, 2013), end-of-life care setting operators (Holland and Neimeyer, 2005), hospital employees (Chirico et al, 2018;Carneiro et al, 2019), nurses (Kovacs and Kèdzy, 2008;Chirico et al, 2018), nuns serving as nurses (Kovacs, 2009), and lay and consecrated school teachers (Benevene and Callea, 2011;Chirico, 2017c). According to Frederick, Christian human services workers who practice three spiritual exercises, i.e., the Jesus Prayer, the daily examination, and the prayer of consideration, by reconnecting with the empowering, living spirit of God, may effectively prevent and cope with burnout (Frederick et al, 2017).…”

Assessing the Incremental Validity of Spirituality in Predicting Nurses’ Burnout

“…Yong, Kim, Park, Seo, and John (2011) found that spiritual well-being, spiritual integrity and leadership practice improved and burnout decreased significantly when a spiritual training program was included during training. Kovacs and Nagy (2010) found similar results. They emphasized that religious belief has a crucial role in the avoidance of burnout.…”

Los procesos de estrés laboral y desgaste profesional (burnout): diferenciación, actualización y líneas de intervención

“…MEDICINA y SEGURIDAD del trabajo niveles de religiosidad, la práctica de la meditación, la relajación, el sentido del humor y la creatividad [39][40][41][42][43] , o a nivel social, la eficacia organizacional 44 .…”