A study of burnout and perceived physical health in educational personnel

Introduction
Research on burnout has increased considerably, by now it is recognized as a widespread problem in society today. Efforts have been made to identify and define correctly this syndrome. In general, burnout is understood as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal and emotional stressors at work. It is made up of three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and inefficacy (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001).

Methods
The study involved 374 workers from 21 educational institutions in the State of Morelos, México, of which 51.3% were staff from public schools and 48.7% of private. The instruments used were the MBI-ES, Maslach, Jackson, and Schwab (1996) and the Q-Labors (Casas et al., 2004), the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire proposed by Weiss et al. (1967), the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (1979) and the Perceived Organizational Support by Eisenberger et al. (1986). It also included demographic questions. Statistical analysis was performed using a structural equation modeling with AMOS package.

Results
The hypothetical model posited two external variables associated with burnout and two consequent factors for the presence of the syndrome.A re-specification method was employed to the initial model and the non-significant relationships were removed, resulting in a simpler model with fits of adjustment within expected limits. The indices of the re-specified model were: RMSEA = .053 with confidence interval of 0.46 - 0.60; TLI o NNFI = .91; RNI= .92; GFI= .90; AGFI =.87.

Discussion
The results show Perceived Organizational Support and Relations with peers as antecedent variables associated with burnout; decline in Physical health and Job satisfaction factors were considered consequent factors. As for the dimensions of burnout, the presence of Emotional exhaustion and Inefficiency reduce Physical health, also feeling no support from the Organization and emotionally exhausted affects work satisfaction. It was also observed that peer’s support reduces physical health problems.