ECP03-01 - Practical strategies to managing stress

Abstract

The relationship that people have with their work and the difficulties that can arise when that relationship becomes problematic, have been long recognized as a significant phenomenon of our time. The use of the term “Burn-out” for this phenomenon began in the 1970s in the United States especially among people working in human services. What has emerged from all this research since then is a conceptualization of job-bourn-out as a psychological syndrome in response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three dimensions of this response are (1) an emotional exhaustion, (2) feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job and (3) a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. Bourn-out has been associated with various forms of job withdrawal, i.e. absenteeism, intention to leave the job and actual turnover. However, for people who stay on the job, burn-out leads to lower productivity and effectiveness at work. Consequently this is associated with decreased job satisfaction and a reduced commitment to the job or organization. People who are experiencing burn-out also can have a negative impact on their colleagues. There is also some evidence that burn-out has a negative impact on people's private life and their social relationships. This presentation deals with the individual development of burn-out, the organizational framework, which promote burn-out and the interplay of different determinants of burn-out. Finally several effective intervention approaches on the individual and organizational level will be pointed out.