Spirituality (Meaningfulness) is Related to Lower Work Burnout
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“the use of spiritual beliefs and practices can reduce the effects of burnout.” – Andrew Jacob Godoy
Stress is epidemic in the western workplace with almost two thirds of workers reporting high levels of stress at work. Burnout is the fatigue, cynicism, emotional exhaustion, sleep disruption, and professional inefficacy that comes with work-related stress. Religion and spirituality have been promulgated as solutions to the challenges of life. There have been a number of studies of the influence of religiosity and spirituality on the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners mostly showing positive benefits, with spirituality encouraging personal growth and mental health. Spirituality may be viewed as a search for meaning in one’s life. Hence, there is a need to investigate the relationships of spirituality (meaningfulness) with burnout in work environments.
In today’s Research News article “An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship Between Spirituality, Work Culture, and Burnout: The Need for an Extended Health and Disease Model.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.723884/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1735535_a0P58000000G0YfEAK_Psycho_20210921_arts_A ) Listopad and colleagues recruited employed adults online and had them complete measures of burnout, work engagement, meaningfulness of work, and homeliness in the organization. They operationally define spirituality as meaningfulness which in this study translates to meaningfulness of work.
They found that the lower the levels of work engagement, meaningfulness of work, and homeliness the greater the level of burnout. They also found that the subscales of the meaningfulness of work measure were negatively related to burnout especially positive meaning of work and were also positively related to work engagement. Additionally, they found that the subscales of the homeliness in the organization measure were negatively related to burnout especially needs fulfillment, group membership, and emotional connection and were also positively related to work engagement.
The study is correlative and as such caution must be exercised in reaching conclusions regarding causation. Nevertheless, the results demonstrate that spirituality (meaningfulness) is related to lower burnout. The results suggest that greater meaningfulness of work (spirituality) and t connection of the worker to the organization (homeliness) the lower the levels of burnout and the higher the levels of engagement in the work. The search for meaning (spirituality) is ubiquitous in humans. Hence, in part, burnout is more likely to occur when there is a lack of meaningfulness. When meaning is missing it is more likely that work will unsatisfying and burnout can occur.
So, spirituality (meaningfulness) is related to lower work burnout.
“spirituality may have a positive impact on the experience of and ability to manage workplace stress . . . spirituality may have positive impacts on job burnout.” – Jessica L. Lueck
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Listopad IW, Esch T and Michaelsen MM (2021) An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship Between Spirituality, Work Culture, and Burnout: The Need for an Extended Health and Disease Model. Front. Psychol. 12:723884. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.723884
Apart from biological, psychological, and social factors, recent studies indicate that spirituality and work culture also play an important role in the onset of burnout. Hence, the commonly applied bio-psycho-social model of health and disease might not be sufficient to comprehensively explain and describe burnout. This study empirically investigates the relationship between spirituality (operationalized by perceived meaningfulness of work) and work culture (operationalized by sense of homeliness of the working environment) with burnout risk and work engagement. For this purpose, an anonymous cross-sectional data collection with fully standardized questionnaires and selected socio-demographic and work-related items was conducted among working adults (n = 439) from different industries via social media and local health service centers. For all scales and subscales, we found significant moderate to strong correlations. Furthermore, positive meaning within the perceived meaningfulness of work scale was the largest beta coefficient for burnout (β = −0.65) and work engagement (β = 0.62). Within sense of homeliness, the largest beta coefficient for burnout was needs fulfillment (β = −0.34) and work engagement emotional connection (β = 0.36). The strong associations suggest that the current health and disease model needs to be expanded to a bio-psycho-socio-spirito-cultural model to be able to sufficiently describe burnout. The perceived meaningfulness of work and a sense of homeliness should be adequately considered when examining the onset of burnout, describing burnout as a concept, and explaining work engagement.