Psychometric Properties and Convergent Validity of the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure in Two German-Speaking Samples of Adult Workers and Police Officers.

René Schilling,Sebastian Ludyga,Markus Gerber,Serge Brand,Flora Colledge

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00536

Abstract

Burnout is considered an occupation-related psychological syndrome consisting of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion. To assess dimensions of burnout, the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure (SMBM) is widely used, but its validity and reliability have rarely been examined in adult samples. The aim of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the German version of the SMBM in two independent samples of adults. In total, 311 adult workers and 201 police officers completed the SMBM, and questionnaires related to perceived stress and mental well-being. Descriptive statistics, internal consistency, convergent validity, and factorial validity were assessed for both samples, separately for male and female participants. The German SMBM had adequate psychometric properties and sufficient convergent validity. In confirmatory factor analyses, we found a good fit for both the first- and second-order model. Furthermore, measurement invariance across gender was observed in both samples. Although the SMBM is a popular instrument among burnout researchers, this study demonstrates for the first time that the SMBM can be considered a valid and reliable tool to assess burnout symptoms in both male and female adults and across different professional groups. Furthermore, with its 14 items, the SMBM is a succinct and economic self-assessment tool for symptoms of burnout.

Highlights

Burnout can be defined as an occupational syndrome consisting of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion [1]
Regarding convergent validity (Table 2), we found a positive correlation between the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure (SMBM) overall index and the Perceived stress (PSS) sum score (r = 0.56, p < 0.001)
How to explain this unexpected pattern of results? While in our adult sample, no gender difference existed with regard to age, body mass index (BMI), marital status, children at home, caregiving, job experience, educational level, smoking status, and use of medication, we found that men had a higher mean employment rate than women (96.2% vs. 78.84% in full-time employment)

Summary

Introduction

Burnout can be defined as an occupational syndrome consisting of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion [1]. While there is broad consensus that people with burnout require medical and psychiatric treatment, there has been constant debate as to whether burnout should be considered a specific and well-defined psychiatric disorder, an epiphenomenon of a major depressive disorder (ICD-10: F33.xx), an adjustment disorder (ICD-10: F43.xx) [2,3,4,5,6,7], or a form of chronic fatigue syndrome (ICD-10: G93.3). Psychometric Properties and Convergent Validity of the SMBM overlap between burnout and depression that burnout should not be considered as a specific job-related phenomenon, but rather as a depressive condition. Others argue that the two constructs are distinct [9] and that burnout syndrome should be given the status of an occupational disease [10, 11]. The ICD-11 definition highlights that burnout is a work-related phenomenon and not suitable for the description of experiences in other life domains

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