The factor structure of the Maslach Burnout Inventory in two Swedish human service organizations

Abstract

The Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI, is a well established measure of burnout. Its validity outside the USA is, however, uncertain. The aim of the present study was therefore to apply the MBI on personnel in two Swedish human service organizations, comparing factor solutions and scoring norms to the original results. The population consisted of 5730 employees in the Social Insurance Organization (SIO) and the Individual and Family Care section (IFC) of the social welfare agencies. Principal components analysis, principal axes and alpha factor analyses were performed, all with varimax rotation. The suggested three factor solution showed to be remarkably stable irrespective of type of analysis. Score levels were somewhat lower on two subscales in the Swedish population. The conclusion is that the psychometric properties of the MBI seem to be very satisfactory and stable, at least in comparison between Sweden and USA. It is suggested that the dimensionality of MBI is rather invariant, but that the score levels covary with national, cultural, or professional contexts within the human services.

Burnout: An Overview of 25 Years of Research and Theorizing

“…Paradoxically, as noted before, it is also the least specific scale, that cannot easily be distinguished from related concepts such as depression (discriminant validity). Similar positive psychometric results have been obtained with the French (Dion & Tessier, 1994), German (Büssing & Perrar, 1992;Enzmann & Kleiber, 1989), Dutch (Schaufeli & Van Dierendonck, 1993 and Swedish (Söderfeldt et al, 1996) versions of the MBI. Moreover, the cross-national validity of the MBI-HSS has been demonstrated across German, French and Dutch samples (Enzmann et al, 1994) and of the MBI-GS across Finnish, Swedish and Dutch samples (Schutte et al, 2000).…”

The association between job skill discretion, decision authority and burnout

“…conceptualization of burnout as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment is widely cited (Kop, Euwema, and Schaufeli, 1999;Lee, and Ashforth, 1990;Schaufeli, Maslach, and Marek, 1993;Soderfeldt, Soderfeldt, Warg, and Ohlson, 1996). Emotional exhaustion refers to the depletion of one's emotional resources and has been linked to such psychological constructs as tension, anxiety, physical fatigue, and insomnia.…”

“…Reduced personal accomplishment represents an aspect of personal eYcacy and refers to a low level of perceived competence and successful achievement in one's work (Maslach, 1993). Research on the factorial structure of the Maslach Burnout Inventory indicates that personal accomplishment is distinct from the other two dimensions and that emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are linked (Lee, and Ashforth, 1996;Soderfeldt et al, 1996;Taris, Schreurs, and Schaufeli, 1999). Research also suggests that the three dimensions of burnout might be related to diVerent job characteristics (Cordes, and Dougherty, 1993;Janssen, Schaufeli, and Houkes, 1999;Maslach, 1993).…”

The Oswald Clergy Burnout Scale: Reliability, Factor Structure and Preliminary Application Among Australian Clergy

“…Normative values for the three dimensions were established with data collected from a representative range of workers in the social sector, including nurses, social workers, teachers, police officers and psychologists. Subsequent factor analytic examinations, for example by Fimian andBlanton (1987), Green andWalkey (1988), Gold, Roth, Wright, Michael, and Chen (1992), Soederfeldt, Soederfeldt, Warg, and Ohlson (1996) and Tang (1998) have provided supportive evidence for the threedimensional structure of burnout among various samples of human service personnel.…”