The Role of Resilience in Reducing Burnout: A Study with Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Pedro Ferreira and Sofia Gomes
Additional contact information
Pedro Ferreira: REMIT—Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies, University Portucalense, R. Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida 541, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Sofia Gomes: REMIT—Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies, University Portucalense, R. Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida 541, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: Although burnout is a widely studied topic, there is still much to learn about this symptom during a pandemic crisis like the one caused by COVID-19. Moreover, and according to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, the relation between personal resources and burnout is still an understudied topic. The main goal of this research is to understand the influence of mental resilience on the three dimensions of burnout-emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal achievement-among healthcare workers when exposed to a pandemic situation. A cross-sectional study was conducted based on the administration of an online survey to a sample of 196 healthcare workers (nurses and doctors) during the second wave of COVID-19 in Portugal. Hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares. The results show that during a pandemic situation, higher levels of resilience associated both with lower levels of emotional exhaustion (Emotional Exhaustion: ?0.17; 95% Confidence Interval–CI: ?0.38, 0.04) and depersonalization (Depersonalization: ?0.17; 95% CI: ?0.31, ?0.03), and higher levels of personal achievement (Personal Achievement: 0.50; 95% CI: 0.40, 0.61). Resilience should be considered an important asset for reducing levels of burnout when facing highly stressing situations. The main contribution of this research is related to the role of personal resources as an inhibitor of negative consequences of job strain, such as burnout. The findings add new knowledge to the topic of fighting (not just understanding) burnout in deeply stressful situations, like the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforcing the importance of developing personal resources. Resilience skills may be developed, thus reducing the risk of burnout.

Keywords: burnout; resilience; personal resources; healthcare; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/9/317/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/9/317/ (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:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:9:p:317-:d:620326

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

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