Can Psychological Capital Protect Perfectionist from Burnout? A Cross-sectional Study among Healthcare Professionals in India

ABSTRACT

It is of no doubt that health professionals perform unique and demanding roles in their professional setting, exposing them to high levels of occupational stress and burnout, particularly in a country like India. Perfectionism is explained as a personality trait that has been studied to have an impact on variables like Job Burnout, Job Satisfaction, etc, which is not a rare trait among such professionals. Job Burnout can be understood as having three parts, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization/cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment/efficacy. Through this study, we aim at understanding if psychological capital, which is a state like higher-order variable, has a mediating effect on the relationship between perfectionism and job burnout among healthcare professionals in India. 114 healthcare professionals currently practicing in India took part in the study. The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (2007);Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (1990);and The Job Burnout Scale (2009) were administered for measuring the variables. The mediation was studied by regression analysis and partial correlation. From the results of the current study, it was revealed that psychological capital has a mediating effect on the relationship between perfectionism and job burnout. Other results of the study included a highly significant correlation between perfectionism and burnout and between psychological capital and burnout. No significant correlation was established between perfectionism and psychological capital or its components, other than optimism. The Covid-19 pandemic situation in the country at the time of data collection of the study cannot be ignored while discussing the results of this study.