Occupational Medicine 2014;64:521–523 Advance Access publication 14 August 2014 doi:10.1093/occmed/kqu100
Public service stress and burnout over 12 months J. M. Ravalier1, A. McVicar2 and C. Munn-Giddings3 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, London W1B 2UW, UK, 2Department of Allied Health and Medicine, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UK, 3Department of Family and Community Studies, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UK. 1
Correspondence to: J. M. Ravalier, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 350 64425; e-mail: [email protected]
Aims
To explore whether psychosocial hazards and burnout changed over a 12 month period in a public sector organization during a period of severely reduced organizational finances.
Methods
The Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) were administered to employees of one local government department in July 2011 and July 2012.
Results
A total of 128 employees completed the questionnaires in July 2011 (response rate 67%) and 57 in July 2012 (response rate 54%). MSIT factor scores of demands, peer support and role worsened significantly over the period of study. Furthermore, all psychosocial hazards scored worse than the recommended level set by Health and Safety Executive. Two burnout dimensions, ‘demands’ and ‘cynicism’, significantly worsened over the 12 month period but professional efficacy increased.
Conclusions The MSIT and MBI-GS appeared to have utility in this comparison. Psychosocial hazards appeared to worsen over the 12 months of the study, as ‘demands’ and ‘cynicism’ increased. However, an increase in professional efficacy was also seen, which requires further investigation. Key words
Burnout; Management Standards Indicator Tool; Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale; workplace stress.
Introduction
Methods
Research indicates that workplace stress has the potential to harm employee health [1,2], with stress and stressrelated absence increasing significantly during economic recession [3]. In 2004, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) [4] released a set of management standards and an accompanying Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) designed to measure the psychosocial hazards individuals encounter in the workplace. The HSE model was based on the job demand-controlsupport model of organizational stress [5]. The MSIT has previously been shown to be both valid and reliable [6], and suitable for use alongside a measure of burnout in a sample of local government employees [7]. This study, a follow-up to a previous report [7], aimed to investigate the differences over 12 months in psychosocial hazards and burnout for local government employees during a time of reduced organizational finances.
This cross-sectional study used the MSIT [4] and Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) [8], which have been used together previously [7], as self-report tools. At Time 1 (T1), all employees of one local government department in the east of England were invited to take part, either by e-mail or letter. At Time 2 (T2), all staff had access to the organizational intranet so distribution was by e-mail only. Stress had been an increasing problem for the participating department, with the number of working days lost to stress increasing from 469 in 2011/12 to 562 in 2012/13 (J. M. Ravalier, personal communication). The employer did not implement any targeted stress-reduction interventions between T1 and T2. Data were analysed using SPSS [9] and an MSIT indicator tool released by the HSE to compare scoring against suggested ideal outcomes. The analysis tool also allowed the investigation of psychosocial hazards
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
Downloaded from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ondokuz Mayis University on November 11, 2014
Background Research indicates that workplace stress has the potential to harm employee health with stress and stressrelated absence increasing significantly during economic recession and times of organizational change.
522 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
requiring intervention. An independent samples t-test was conducted in order to look for differences between T1 and T2. Ethical approval was gained from the Anglia Ruskin University research ethics committee.
Results
Our results indicate that MSIT scoring on demands, peer support and role worsened significantly over the study period and that all three MBI-GS factor scores changed significantly over this period. The experience of both exhaustion and cynicism worsened over the time that the MSIT changes occurred, although professional efficacy improved significantly. Our results, therefore, indicate that certain psychosocial working conditions worsened over the course of the project, alongside changes in the number of individuals within the participating department. The changing economic situation in the UK is likely to have been directly responsible [3]. However, despite such perceptions, staff felt that they were working more effectively (as indicated by increased professional efficacy scoring) by the end of the study period. The difference seen in length of employment, in combination with high numbers of leavers, strengthens the impression that this is an organization undergoing change and thus is worth investigating. The results should be interpreted with caution, however. The respondents were a small sample of the organization’s total workforce (~10% of the total at both times). The sample size was relatively small atT1 and decreased (due to both a decline in response rate and employee redundancies) at T2. However, MSIT and MBI-GS appeared to be sensitive measures at both times, with the combined use of the two tools still fit for purpose. It is unclear how redundancy between T1 and T2, or the threat thereof, will have affected levels of stress in the study population, but it is possible that those potentially facing redundancy may have experienced increasing stress. The results suggest that wider follow-up studies should be conducted and should include investigation of the positive changes in professional efficacy, in view of the otherwise negative trends. To conclude, within one department of a local government organization over 12 months during which there were large numbers of staff redundancies, psychosocial hazard scoring increased as did the level
Table 1. Mean scoring at Time 1 and Time 2 on MSIT and MBI-GSa Psychosocial hazards (MSIT)
Demands Control Managerial support Peer support Relationships Role Change
Time 1 mean score (SD)
Time 2 mean score (SD)
3.03 (0.65) 3.68 (0.74) 3.44 (0.85) 3.75 (0.68) 3.87 (0.68) 4.09 (0.58) 3.01 (0.93)
2.85 (0.65) 3.52 (0.82) 3.09 (0.96) 3.64 (0.72) 3.62 (0.81) 3.73 (0.72) 2.82 (1.10)
SD, standard deviation. a Mean ideal target according to HSE benchmark data is also shown.
HSE long-term target
3.29 3.72 3.65 3.89 4.04 4.31 3.24
Downloaded from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ondokuz Mayis University on November 11, 2014
At T1, the response rate was 67% (n = 128). At T2, the number of potential respondents employed had dropped by 42% to 106, reflecting organizational responses to financial pressures. Of these 57 employees responded, a response rate of 54%. It is likely that most T2 respondents also responded at T1, although as data collection was anonymized this could not be confirmed. At T1, the median age range of respondents was 41–50 years (n = 39, 30%) and T2 was 51–60 (n = 21, 37%), with 61 female (47%) and 42 male (32%) respondents at T1 against 30 (53%) female and 24 male (42%) at T2 (allowing for non-responses). Chi square results, however, indicated no significant difference of either age or gender from T1 to T2. Median employment length was 5–10 years at T1 (n = 38, 29%) and 10 years and above at T2 (n = 28, 49%). A significant difference was found in employment length (χ2 (7, N = 179) = 37.7, P
Public service stress and burnout over 12 months J. M. Ravalier1, A. McVicar2 and C. Munn-Giddings3 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, London W1B 2UW, UK, 2Department of Allied Health and Medicine, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UK, 3Department of Family and Community Studies, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UK. 1
Correspondence to: J. M. Ravalier, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 350 64425; e-mail: [email protected]
Aims
To explore whether psychosocial hazards and burnout changed over a 12 month period in a public sector organization during a period of severely reduced organizational finances.
Methods
The Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) were administered to employees of one local government department in July 2011 and July 2012.
Results
A total of 128 employees completed the questionnaires in July 2011 (response rate 67%) and 57 in July 2012 (response rate 54%). MSIT factor scores of demands, peer support and role worsened significantly over the period of study. Furthermore, all psychosocial hazards scored worse than the recommended level set by Health and Safety Executive. Two burnout dimensions, ‘demands’ and ‘cynicism’, significantly worsened over the 12 month period but professional efficacy increased.
Conclusions The MSIT and MBI-GS appeared to have utility in this comparison. Psychosocial hazards appeared to worsen over the 12 months of the study, as ‘demands’ and ‘cynicism’ increased. However, an increase in professional efficacy was also seen, which requires further investigation. Key words
Burnout; Management Standards Indicator Tool; Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale; workplace stress.
Introduction
Methods
Research indicates that workplace stress has the potential to harm employee health [1,2], with stress and stressrelated absence increasing significantly during economic recession [3]. In 2004, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) [4] released a set of management standards and an accompanying Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) designed to measure the psychosocial hazards individuals encounter in the workplace. The HSE model was based on the job demand-controlsupport model of organizational stress [5]. The MSIT has previously been shown to be both valid and reliable [6], and suitable for use alongside a measure of burnout in a sample of local government employees [7]. This study, a follow-up to a previous report [7], aimed to investigate the differences over 12 months in psychosocial hazards and burnout for local government employees during a time of reduced organizational finances.
This cross-sectional study used the MSIT [4] and Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) [8], which have been used together previously [7], as self-report tools. At Time 1 (T1), all employees of one local government department in the east of England were invited to take part, either by e-mail or letter. At Time 2 (T2), all staff had access to the organizational intranet so distribution was by e-mail only. Stress had been an increasing problem for the participating department, with the number of working days lost to stress increasing from 469 in 2011/12 to 562 in 2012/13 (J. M. Ravalier, personal communication). The employer did not implement any targeted stress-reduction interventions between T1 and T2. Data were analysed using SPSS [9] and an MSIT indicator tool released by the HSE to compare scoring against suggested ideal outcomes. The analysis tool also allowed the investigation of psychosocial hazards
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
Downloaded from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ondokuz Mayis University on November 11, 2014
Background Research indicates that workplace stress has the potential to harm employee health with stress and stressrelated absence increasing significantly during economic recession and times of organizational change.
522 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
requiring intervention. An independent samples t-test was conducted in order to look for differences between T1 and T2. Ethical approval was gained from the Anglia Ruskin University research ethics committee.
Results
Our results indicate that MSIT scoring on demands, peer support and role worsened significantly over the study period and that all three MBI-GS factor scores changed significantly over this period. The experience of both exhaustion and cynicism worsened over the time that the MSIT changes occurred, although professional efficacy improved significantly. Our results, therefore, indicate that certain psychosocial working conditions worsened over the course of the project, alongside changes in the number of individuals within the participating department. The changing economic situation in the UK is likely to have been directly responsible [3]. However, despite such perceptions, staff felt that they were working more effectively (as indicated by increased professional efficacy scoring) by the end of the study period. The difference seen in length of employment, in combination with high numbers of leavers, strengthens the impression that this is an organization undergoing change and thus is worth investigating. The results should be interpreted with caution, however. The respondents were a small sample of the organization’s total workforce (~10% of the total at both times). The sample size was relatively small atT1 and decreased (due to both a decline in response rate and employee redundancies) at T2. However, MSIT and MBI-GS appeared to be sensitive measures at both times, with the combined use of the two tools still fit for purpose. It is unclear how redundancy between T1 and T2, or the threat thereof, will have affected levels of stress in the study population, but it is possible that those potentially facing redundancy may have experienced increasing stress. The results suggest that wider follow-up studies should be conducted and should include investigation of the positive changes in professional efficacy, in view of the otherwise negative trends. To conclude, within one department of a local government organization over 12 months during which there were large numbers of staff redundancies, psychosocial hazard scoring increased as did the level
Table 1. Mean scoring at Time 1 and Time 2 on MSIT and MBI-GSa Psychosocial hazards (MSIT)
Demands Control Managerial support Peer support Relationships Role Change
Time 1 mean score (SD)
Time 2 mean score (SD)
3.03 (0.65) 3.68 (0.74) 3.44 (0.85) 3.75 (0.68) 3.87 (0.68) 4.09 (0.58) 3.01 (0.93)
2.85 (0.65) 3.52 (0.82) 3.09 (0.96) 3.64 (0.72) 3.62 (0.81) 3.73 (0.72) 2.82 (1.10)
SD, standard deviation. a Mean ideal target according to HSE benchmark data is also shown.
HSE long-term target
3.29 3.72 3.65 3.89 4.04 4.31 3.24
Downloaded from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/ at Ondokuz Mayis University on November 11, 2014
At T1, the response rate was 67% (n = 128). At T2, the number of potential respondents employed had dropped by 42% to 106, reflecting organizational responses to financial pressures. Of these 57 employees responded, a response rate of 54%. It is likely that most T2 respondents also responded at T1, although as data collection was anonymized this could not be confirmed. At T1, the median age range of respondents was 41–50 years (n = 39, 30%) and T2 was 51–60 (n = 21, 37%), with 61 female (47%) and 42 male (32%) respondents at T1 against 30 (53%) female and 24 male (42%) at T2 (allowing for non-responses). Chi square results, however, indicated no significant difference of either age or gender from T1 to T2. Median employment length was 5–10 years at T1 (n = 38, 29%) and 10 years and above at T2 (n = 28, 49%). A significant difference was found in employment length (χ2 (7, N = 179) = 37.7, P
