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. 2021 Jan 13:11:623587.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.623587. eCollection 2020.

Social Support Mediates the Effect of Burnout on Health in Health Care Professionals

Pablo Ruisoto  1 , Marina R Ramírez  2 , Pedro A García  3 , Belén Paladines-Costa  2 , Silvia L Vaca  2 , Vicente J Clemente-Suárez  4   5
Affiliations

Social Support Mediates the Effect of Burnout on Health in Health Care Professionals

Pablo Ruisoto et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses (68% women, with and age M = 40 + 9 years old), was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Social Support Survey (MOS), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador.

Keywords: burnout – professional; general health; health care professionals; psychological stress; social support.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The unstandardized regression coefficients for the mediating effect of social support on the relationship between burnout and health. ***p < 0.0001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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