Burnout in Police Officers from Northern Mexico: a Validity Study of the Maslach Burnout Inventory

Abstract

Multiple levels of risks threat police officers and others’ safeties. From monitoring social events to responding to criminal actions, officers’ abilities to cope to stress are in challenged constantly. Stressful events continuously impact officers’ physical and emotional well-being in detriment of acquiring healthy behaviors or of caring for their physical or mental hygiene. When police activities are neglected or receive negative social perceptions as it occurs in Mexico, it results imperative to explore strategies to overcome the development of illness intrinsically associated to the execution of work activities. This study contributes to the police well-being literature by assessing the appropriateness of using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) in Mexico. Working on data collected from police officers from northern Mexico, psychometric and statistical analysis were conducted to evaluate (1) the appropriateness of using the MBI on these professionals and (2) levels of burnout and their associations to gender and age. Results support considering the MBI as a valid and reliable tool to evaluate burnout symptoms in Mexican officers. Gender and age did not associate significantly to burnout symptomatology. The use of the MBI is recommended to research and explore burnout symptomatology in Mexican officers as strategy to promote mental health programs.