Job Burnout Among Iranian Speech and Language Pathologists

Abstract

Background: The amount of burnouts in professions is relatively high and deals with health. No study has been conducted on the burnout among the speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in Iran. Objectives: Thus, this study was performed to investigate burnout and the risk factors related to it among the Iranian SLPs. Methods: Sampling was conducted on the eligible SLPs (N = 182) participated in the 13th Iranian national congress of speech and language pathology (2015) using the convenience sampling method. In this study, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaire, in which its reliability had been obtained in Iran (α ≥ 76%), and the demographic questionnaire (job and individual information) were used. To find the risk factors of job burnout, the χ2 test and the logistic regression correlation were used. Results: In this study, 97.3% of SLPs had burnout (mild = 44% and moderate = 53.3%). The burnout was observed in the domains of the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization; factors such as income level (P = 0.03, mean = 1.96, SD = 0.79), case load size (P = 0.015, r = - 0.12, mean = 35.5, SD = 21.05), and retraining courses (P = 0.05, mean = 1.54, SD = 0.8), had the significant relationship with job burnout. Conclusions: All SLPs had a mild and moderate burnout. Burnout had a positive relationship with case-load size, however, it had a negative one with the income level and job retraining courses. To reduce the burnout, the above problems should be paid attention to.