Working with Chronic Illness: Investigating Individual Health Status and Burnout

Abstract

Although chronic illnesses are prevalent and increasing among the workforce in the US and Europe, their consequences are rarely attended to in theoretical considerations and empirical analyses on work and health. In this paper, we analyze the impact of chronic illnesses and their perceived severity on employee burnout in two studies including employees with multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel diseases. In the first study, we show that people with a chronic illness report more higher burnout levels compared to employees without any chronic medical conditions. Furthermore, we show that the perceived severity of the illness is associated with higher levels of exhaustion burnout in two cross-sectional analyses. In the second study, we show that the perceived severity of the illness predicts exhaustion burnout 6 months later. Our results strongly imply the inclusion of health status and chronic illness into occupational health research and practice.