Staying well or burning out at work: work characteristics and personal resources as long-term predictors

The aim of this longitudinal study was to recognize the work characteristics and personal resources that are associated with burnout symptoms in the long term. The empirical analyses are based on sample data ( n = 174) from a larger survey in 1986 and from a 10-year follow up in 1996 conducted in an international industrial forestry enterprise. The participants were drawn from those workers in Finland, the home country of the enterprise, who responded to the questionnaires at both times. The participants were classified into those having no burnout and those with serious burnout. In order to compare the groups a multivariate analysis of variance and t - tests for two independent groups were used. Four job-related and five organizational factors, 10 work environment hazards and three individual variables were used as predictors. Change variables were formed from the predictors. All the significant changes in work and personal resources during 10 years had shifted to the positive direction in the no-burnout group, and to the negative direction in the serious burnout group. Discriminant analysis was used to identify linear combinations of quantitative predictor variables that best characterized the differences between the groups. Both the cross-sectional and the longitudinal predictors showed that factors related to the social processes at work seem to be crucial to burnout. Of the individual resources, a strong sense of coherence seems to be of particular importance.