New version of the professional burnout questionnaire for IT specialists

Abstract

Introduction. In modern conditions of digitalized society, the number of IT specialists who are susceptible to professional burnout is growing. The activities of specialists of the ‘subject-information’ professions demand high cognitive load and cause information stress; communications here are mediated by digital resources. A priority task is the development of valid methods for diagnosing the stress syndrome of professional burnout among IT specialists. The research aims to theoretically study the burnout syndrome of IT specialists and to correct questions for assessing the professional burnout of IT specialists based on a four-factor model of this phenomenon. Materials and methods. The total sample of the study consisted of 685 IT specialists. In addition to questions related to burnout, questions regarding occupational health were added. Based on interviews with IT specialists about the causes of professional fatigue and burnout, questions traditionally related to the three subfactors of professional burnout in socionomic professions were adjusted: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (detachment of the individual), reduction of professional achievements. Questions about the health status of specialists in ‘subject-digital interaction’, conventionally called the ‘ill-health scale’, are formulated and included. Methods of mathematical statistics were as follows: correlation analysis and statistical tests by KolmogorovSmirnov and Student’s t-test. Results. The new version of the questionnaire allows assessing the level of severity of professional burnout among IT specialists (taking into account the specifics of their activities) and predicting adverse effects such as reduced performance, work motivation, and professional ill-being of employees of IT companies. The internal consistency of the method is up to 0.67 at p≤0.01. The questionnaire scales have acceptable reliability characteristics; correlation coefficients are 0.51-0.74, which indicates the test-retest reliability of the methodology. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient ranges from 0.69 to 0.75. Conclusion. The ‘IT Professional Burnout’ questionnaire meets the basic psychometric requirements presented in the ‘Russian Personnel Testing Standard’ and has theoretical validity of the measured construct and of its indicators, as well as acceptable reliability and validity coefficients.