Work addiction, work engagement, job burnout, and perceived stress: A network analysis

Abstract

IntroductionRecently, the network theory of mental disorders has been used to conceptualize work addiction as a dynamic system of symptoms in direct relationships. This study aimed to extend previous work by investigating the direct relationships of work addiction symptoms with dimensions of work engagement, job burnout, and perceived stress.MethodsThese phenomena were measured with the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory–General Survey, and the Perceived Stress Scale. The sample comprised 676 working Poles with a mean age of 36.12 years (SD = 11.23). The network analysis followed the guidelines for estimating psychological networks from cross-sectional data.ResultsWork engagement and job burnout were more closely associated with each other than with work addiction which supports the notion that engagement and burnout represent polar opposites of the same construct and that work addiction is a separate phenomenon, related to both work engagement and job burnout via specific pathways. The symptoms of work addiction were connected with other phenomena through four direct relationships: (1) mood modification—absorption, (2) mood modification—stress, (3) withdrawal—absorption, and (4) problems—exhaustion.DiscussionThese findings narrow down and specify hypotheses regarding potential mechanisms leading from engagement to addiction and from addiction to burnout. The possible mechanisms focus on the absorption component and mood modification related to efforts focused on alleviating chronic stress and negative emotional states. In turn, problems arising from work addiction may lead to exhaustion. Future studies investigating these mechanisms in detail may enable proper prevention programs and therapeutic interventions.

Network Approach to Work Addiction: A Cross-Cultural Study

“…The causal inference was limited as the study design was cross-sectional. Finally, direct relationships between symptoms of work addiction could have been influenced by a lack of other important variables in the networks (e.g., work engagement or job burnout; Bereznowski, Atroszko, & Konarski, 2023; Bereznowski, Bereznowska, et al, 2023).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there have been three studies investigating work addiction using the network theory framework. Two of them were direct extensions of this work (Bereznowski, Atroszko, & Konarski, 2023; Bereznowski, Bereznowska, et al, 2023) and, as such, do not constitute a valid source of hypotheses for the present study; thus, they will not be discussed here. The third study was conducted by Sun et al (2023) and investigated the network of symptoms of work addiction and general anxiety in Chinese white-collar workers.…”

Factors associated with workaholism in nurses’ mental health: integrative review

“…The presence of workaholism and burnout among health professionals can be related to the characteristics of medical practice, which does not admit errors or failures in care. In order to avoid errors in the care process, nurses tend to work hard and be overloaded with tasks ( 36 - 37 ) .…”

Work Addiction and Workaholism are Synonymous: An Analysis of the Sources of Confusion (a Commentary on Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė)

“…The challenge is to understand how and under which circumstances healthy engagement may transition into addiction and how to best measure work addiction risk, taking into account that addictions typically begin with initial positive reinforcement, i.e., pleasure, joy, or satisfaction derived from the substance or behavior (Volkov et al, 2019). One recent approach introduced in work addiction/workaholism research is the network analysis showing that the absorption component of engagement associated with the complete focus on work together with positive affective states (similar to the feeling of "high" obtained with some drugs, e.g., stimulants) and the work addiction symptom of mood modification may constitute a bridge between engagement and addiction (Bereznowski et al, 2021(Bereznowski et al, , 2023. In other words, those who experience high absorption and use this feeling to regulate their mood, especially to escape from negative emotional states and stress (cf.…”