Job Burnout Among Primary Healthcare Workers in Rural China: A Multilevel Analysis

Wanchun Xu, Zijing Pan, Zhong Li, Shan Lu and Liang Zhang
Additional contact information
Wanchun Xu: School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China
Zijing Pan: School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China
Zhong Li: School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China
Shan Lu: School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China
Liang Zhang: School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: The health workers in rural primary care systems are at the increasing risk of job burnout. To explore the prevalence and associated factors of the job burnout among the primary healthcare worker in rural China, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 15,627 participants in 459 township hospitals from six provinces. A combination of stratified multi-stage sampling and cluster sampling method, and a self-administrated questionnaire with the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) were used in the investigation. Multilevel regression analyses were used to examine the potential associated factors on both individual and organisational levels. 47.6% of respondents were experiencing moderate burnout, and 3.3% were in severe burnout. Professionals working for over 40 h per week, at young age, with a college degree, and with professional titles at medium or high rank reported a higher degree of job burnout. At the institutional level, the high ratio of performance-based salary was associated with a higher level of depersonalization. Burnout has become prevalent among the primary healthcare workers in rural China, and multiple strategies are needed to reduce the work stress and some high-risk groups’ vulnerability to job burnout.

Keywords: burnout; rural health workforce; primary care; multilevel analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/727/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/727/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:3:p:727-:d:312178

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().