Assessment of Job-Related Burnout among Health Education Specialists in Taiwan

Abstract

This study examined the degree of job-related burnout and the relationship between burnout and gender, age, practice settings, years in the profession, and the level of religiosity among health education specialists in Taiwan. A Chinese version of Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to assess burnout symptoms among 184 respondents. Results indicated that younger respondents had a significantly higher degree of burnout symptoms on both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization than older respondents and female respondents had a higher score on emotional exhaustion symptoms than male counterparts. There were no other significant differences of burnout symptoms between groups concerning practice setting, years in profession, and level of religiosity. It was concluded that some health education specialists were suffering from burnout symptoms, especially women and younger professionals and there is a need for stress management training for retention and training of health education specialists.