The Relationship between Burnout and Mental Health in Kashan University of Medical Sciences Staff, Iran

Background & Aims of the Study: Professional burnout is a kind of function disorder which can be developed due to long exposure to job and mental stress. This can affects on the physical and mental health of people as well as their performance. So, this study with purpose of evaluating the rate of professional burning out and its relevance with mental health situation of Kashan University of Medical Sciences staff was performed. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 500 staffs of hospitals and health centers in Kashan university of Medical Sciences using share sampling in 2014. Three types of questionnaires were used in this research: Staff demographic characteristics questionnaire, Maslesh Burnout questionnaire (MBI) and Goldberg general Health Questionnaire. In Maslesh Questionnaire, the mental health frequency of studied units was evaluated using Likert scale. Data analyzed using SPSS software. T-test, Tukey, ANOVA, Chi-Square and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results Most of subjects were in mild to moderate levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization while they were in mild level in personal accomplishment and professional engagement. The prevalence of symptomatic samples in the GHQ-28 was 32.8. There was a significant statistical relationship between burnout and mental health in terms of sex, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion. The emotional exhaustion was high in women staffs. However, depersonalization in men was higher. There was a significant relationship between professional burnout and mental health (P<0.001), while it was not found a significant relationship between decreasing personal accomplishment and professional burnout. The high prevalence of burnout in the dimension of self accomplishment, combined with the strong correlation between mental health and burnout, it is essential to respect the authorities in preventing this problem Conclusions: Our results show that there is a strong correlation between mental health and burnout. The high prevalence of symptomatic samples and high prevalence of burnout in the dimension of self accomplishment, combined with the strong correlation between mental health and burnout all show that care should be taken to improve the stressful conditions that Employee face.