Adaptation and Validation of a Burnout Inventory in a Survey of the Staff of a Correctional Institution in Bulgaria.

BACKGROUND: Burnout syndrome is a phenomenon that seems to be studied globally in relation to all types of populations. The staff in the system of correctional institutions in Bulgaria, however, is oddly left out of this tendency. There is no standardized model in Bulgaria that can be used to detect possible susceptibility to professional burnout. The methods available at present only register the irreversible changes that have already set in the functioning of the individual. V. Boyko's method for burnout assessment allows clinicians to use individual approach to patients and affords easy comparability of results with data from other psychodiagnostic instruments. Adaptation of the assessment instruments to fit the specificities of a study population (linguistic, ethno-cultural, etc.) is obligatory so that the instrument could be correctly used and yield valid results. Validation is one of the most frequently used technique to achieve this. AIM: The aim of the present study was to adapt and validate V. Boyko's burnout inventory for diagnosing burnout and assessment of the severity of the burnout syndrome in correctional officers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a pilot study with 50 officers working in the Plovdiv Regional Correction Facility by test-retest survey performed at an interval of 2 to 4 months. All participants completed the adapted questionnaire translated into Bulgarian voluntarily and anonymously. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v.17. RESULTS: We found a mild-to-strong statistically significant correlation (P<0.01) across all subscales between the most frequently used questionnaire for assessing the burnout syndrome, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the tool we propose here. The high Cronbach's α coefficient (α=0.94) and Spearman-Brown coefficient (rsb=0.86), and the low mean between-item correlation (r=0.30) demonstrated the instrument's good reliability and validity. CONCLUSION: With the validation herein presented we offer a highly reliable Bulgarian variant of Boyko's method for burnout assessment and research.

Professional burnout syndrome among correctional facility officers.

INTRODUCTION: Correctional facilities present unique work places--the employees there work in tough, demanding and hazardous working conditions, in real life-threatening environment, subjected to physical and mental fatigue, risk of infectious diseases, work in shifts, with inadequate pay, etc. The aim of this study was to find the prevalence and level of burnout syndrome among employees working in the District Prison of the town of Plovdiv. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study included all employees that had direct contact with the inmates in the prison. We recruited 106 employees that participated in the study anonymously and voluntarily. The main instrument we used was the questionnaire designed according to the methods developed by V. Boiko, which allows identification of professional burnout syndrome in its three phases with four symptoms in each of the phases. RESULTS: We found a high prevalence of burnout syndrome among the staff in the District Prison in Plovdiv (74.53%). All three phases of burnout were found to have a high prevalence rate--the stress phase: 48.11%, the resistance phase: 66.98%, the exhaustion phase: 41.51%. The rank in the service hierarchy was found to be a predictor in the stress phase, B = 0.701, p = 0.048, Exp(B) = 2.106, 95%CI [1.00; 4.04]. The single officers (83.33% of the divorced and 55.56% of the single employees) and those of the staff that were more highly educated (78.72%) had elevated levels of burnout syndrome, and these manifested during the first 5 years of their service in the prison (77.78%). CONCLUSION: In Bulgaria at present the burnout syndrome has not been studied among employees working in correctional facilities. We found a high prevalence of the syndrome among the employees of the District Prison - Plovdiv. The younger, the single and the more educated employees had greater levels of burnout syndrome, which manifest during the first 5 years of their service. The results suggest that there is a need to develop and implement effective strategies to reduce and prevent development of burnout syndrome.