Burnout in the general population. Results from the Finnish Health 2000 Study

Abstract

Background: Burnout is a chronic stress syndrome which develops gradually as a consequence of prolonged stress situation. Socio-demographic factors related to job-related burnout have not been studied in the whole population. We investigated the relative differences in the level of burnout between groups based on various socio-demographic factors in the population-based Finnish sample.

Methods: The nationally representative sample comprised 3,424 employees aged 30-64 years. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey. The socio-demographic factors of interest were gender, age, education, type of employment, work experience, socio-economic status (SES), working time, and marital status.

Results: Only small differences in burnout were found between the different population groups. As a three-dimensional syndrome, burnout was associated with age. In contrast to what has been consistently reported so far, mostly among human service work and in non-representative studies, burnout seemed to increase somewhat with age. Among women, burnout was also related to education, SES, and work experience, and among men, to marital status.

Conclusions: Burnout can evolve in all kinds of vocational groups. It seems that age does not generally protect against burnout. A low education level and low social status carry a possible risk of burnout for women, and being single, divorced, or widowed carry a possible risk of burnout for men.