Work overload, burnout, and psychological ill-health symptoms: a three-wave mediation model of the employee health impairment process

ABSTRACT Background and Objectives: The study reported here investigated the causal relationships in the health impairment process of employee well-being, and the mediating role of burnout in the relationship between work overload and psychological ill-health symptoms, over time. The research is deemed important due to the need for longitudinal evidence of the health impairment process of employee well-being over three waves of data. Design: A quantitative survey design was followed. Participants constituted a longitudinal sample of 370 participants, at three time points, after attrition. Methods: Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling methods were implemented. Results: Work overload at time one predicted burnout at time two, and burnout at time two predicted psychological ill-health symptoms at time three. Indirect effects were found between work overload time one and psychological ill-health symptoms time three via burnout time two, and also between burnout time one and psychological ill-health symptoms time three, via burnout time two. Conclusions: The results provided supportive evidence for an “indirect-only” mediation effect, for burnout's causal mediation mechanism in the health impairment process between work overload and psychological ill-health symptoms.

[1]  G. Buela-Casal,et al.  Effect of CPAP therapy on job productivity and psychosocial occupational health in patients with moderate to severe sleep apnea , 2015, Sleep and Breathing.

[2]  Eric Laurent,et al.  Burnout-depression overlap: a review. , 2015, Clinical psychology review.

[3]  É. Laurent,et al.  Burnout: absence of binding diagnostic criteria hampers prevalence estimates. , 2015, International journal of nursing studies.

[4]  Adela C. Timmons,et al.  The Importance of Temporal Design: How Do Measurement Intervals Affect the Accuracy and Efficiency of Parameter Estimates in Longitudinal Research? , 2015, Multivariate behavioral research.

[5]  S. Viotti,et al.  Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) among Italian Nurses: How Many Factors Must a Researcher Consider? , 2014, PloS one.

[6]  A. Bakker,et al.  Chronic job burnout and daily functioning: A theoretical analysis , 2014 .

[7]  R. Schoot,et al.  Bayesian analyses : where to start and what to report , 2014 .

[8]  A. Bakker,et al.  Burnout and Work Engagement: The JD–R Approach , 2014 .

[9]  E. Demerouti,et al.  Reconsidering the Daily Recovery Process , 2014 .

[10]  Marianna Dinyáné Szabó,et al.  The bifactor model of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)--an alternative measurement model of burnout. , 2014, Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress.

[11]  Russell A. Matthews,et al.  How do occupational stressor-strain effects vary with time? A review and meta-analysis of the relevance of time lags in longitudinal studies , 2014 .

[12]  M. Kompier,et al.  Cause and effect: Optimizing the designs of longitudinal studies in occupational health psychology , 2014 .

[13]  Simon Dalley,et al.  Body size and body esteem in women: the mediating role of possible self expectancy. , 2013, Body image.

[14]  Frederick L. Oswald,et al.  Bayesian Probability and Statistics in Management Research , 2013 .

[15]  S. Rothmann,et al.  A Confirmatory Investigation of a Job Demands-Resources Model Using a Categorical Estimator , 2012, Psychological reports.

[16]  S. Rothmann,et al.  Linking employee burnout to medical aid provider expenditure. , 2012, South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde.

[17]  J. Hox,et al.  A checklist for testing measurement invariance , 2012 .

[18]  Charles S Reichardt,et al.  Commentary: Are Three Waves of Data Sufficient for Assessing Mediation? , 2011, Multivariate behavioral research.

[19]  S. Maxwell,et al.  Bias in Cross-Sectional Analyses of Longitudinal Mediation: Partial and Complete Mediation Under an Autoregressive Model , 2011, Multivariate behavioral research.

[20]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Mediation Analysis in Social Psychology: Current Practices and New Recommendations , 2011 .

[21]  Arnold B. Bakker,et al.  The Job Demands-Resources model: challenges for future research , 2011 .

[22]  Robert E. Ployhart,et al.  The “Quick Start Guide” for Conducting and Publishing Longitudinal Research , 2011 .

[23]  John G. Lynch,et al.  Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and Truths about Mediation Analysis , 2010 .

[24]  U. Walter,et al.  Burnout prevention: a review of intervention programs. , 2010, Patient education and counseling.

[25]  Christina Maslach,et al.  Burnout: 35 years of research and practice , 2009 .

[26]  Tihomir Asparouhov,et al.  Bayesian Analysis of Latent Variable Models using Mplus , 2010 .

[27]  Bengt Muthén,et al.  Bayesian Analysis Using Mplus , 2010 .

[28]  Ying Yuan,et al.  Bayesian mediation analysis. , 2009, Psychological methods.

[29]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Mediation Models for Longitudinal Data in Developmental Research , 2009 .

[30]  Päivi Husman,et al.  Work Health Promotion, Job Well-Being, and Sickness Absences—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis , 2008, Journal of occupational and environmental medicine.

[31]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  The Job Demands-Resources model: A three-year cross-lagged study of burnout, depression, commitment, and work engagement , 2008 .

[32]  David P Mackinnon,et al.  Resampling and Distribution of the Product Methods for Testing Indirect Effects in Complex Models , 2008, Structural equation modeling : a multidisciplinary journal.

[33]  Despoina Xanthopoulou,et al.  Burnout and connectedness among Australian volunteers: A test of the Job Demands–Resources model , 2007 .

[34]  A. Bakker,et al.  The job demands-resources model : state of the art , 2007 .

[35]  S. Rothmann,et al.  Job Characteristics, Optimism, Burnout, and ILL Health of Support Staff in a Higher Education Institution in South Africa , 2007 .

[36]  S. Maxwell,et al.  Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation. , 2007, Psychological methods.

[37]  David B. Dunson,et al.  Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling , 2007 .

[38]  M. Kompier,et al.  Games researchers play--extreme-groups analysis and mediation analysis in longitudinal occupational health research. , 2006, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[39]  A. Shirom,et al.  Burnout and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective Study of Apparently Healthy Employed Persons , 2006, Psychosomatic medicine.

[40]  S. Rothmann,et al.  A model of work‐related well‐being for educators in South Africa , 2006 .

[41]  Karl W. Broman,et al.  Poor Performance of Bootstrap Confidence Intervals for the Location of a Quantitative Trait Locus , 2006, Genetics.

[42]  L. Doornen,et al.  A longitudinal study on cortisol and complaint reduction in burnout , 2006, Psychoneuroendocrinology.

[43]  T. Åkerstedt,et al.  Disturbed sleep and fatigue in occupational burnout. , 2006, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[44]  A. Bakker,et al.  Burnout and Work Engagement among Teachers. , 2006 .

[45]  M. Ekstedt.  Burnout and sleep , 2005 .

[46]  Toon W. Taris,et al.  The conceptualization and measurement of burnout: Common ground and worlds apart , 2005 .

[47]  G. Cumming,et al.  Inference by eye: confidence intervals and how to read pictures of data. , 2005, The American psychologist.

[48]  L.T.B. Jackson,et al.  Burnout and health of primary school educators in the North West Province , 2005 .

[49]  Evangelia Demerouti,et al.  Job resources buffer the impact of job demands on burnout. , 2005, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[50]  A. Bakker,et al.  Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi‐sample study , 2004 .

[51]  David P Mackinnon,et al.  Confidence Limits for the Indirect Effect: Distribution of the Product and Resampling Methods , 2004, Multivariate behavioral research.

[52]  Andrew H. Miller,et al.  When not enough is too much: the role of insufficient glucocorticoid signaling in the pathophysiology of stress-related disorders. , 2011, The American journal of psychiatry.

[53]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  PAST PERFORMANCE AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES OF BURNOUT RESEARCH , 2003 .

[54]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  Job Demands and Job Resources as Predictors of Absence Duration and Frequency. , 2003 .

[55]  S. Michie,et al.  Air pollution study confirms concerns over childhood rickets , 2003, Occupational and environmental medicine.

[56]  W. Schaufeli,et al.  Burnout: An overview of 25 years of research and theorizing. , 2003 .

[57]  P. Mutanen,et al.  The process of burnout in white-collar and blue-collar jobs: eight-year prospective study of exhaustion , 2002 .

[58]  A. Bakker,et al.  on the clinical validity of the maslach burnout inventory and the burnout measure , 2001, Psychology & health.

[59]  A. Bakker,et al.  The job demands-resources model of burnout. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[60]  A. Shirom,et al.  Chronic burnout, somatic arousal and elevated salivary cortisol levels. , 1999, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[61]  S. Jackson,et al.  Maslach burnout inventory manual , 1996 .

[62]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  A meta-analytic examination of the correlates of the three dimensions of job burnout. , 1996, The Journal of applied psychology.

[63]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  A power primer. , 1992, Psychological bulletin.

[64]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY A Power Primer , 1992 .

[65]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[66]  Christina Maslach,et al.  Burnout: The Cost of Caring , 1982 .

[67]  M. Sobel.  Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models , 1982 .

[68]  D. Campbell,et al.  Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. , 1959, Psychological bulletin.