Job Burnout and Perceived Stress among Bank Officers of Meerut: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction:

Burnout is often misconstrued for stress, whereas it is one of the consequences of stress when not managed prosperously. Stress leads to apprehensiveness, loss of energy, and the primary damage is physical. Whereas, burnout is characterized by disengagement where emotions are blunted thus fostering helplessness and hopelessness leading to detachment and despondence, loss of motivation and ideals with the primary damage being emotional.

Objectives:

To find out the prevalence and severity of stress and burnout among bank officers in Meerut District and to find the correlation between the two parameters.

Methods:

Banks were selected by simple random sampling through computer random table method for our study. Further, officer grade bank employees were approached for data collection. A prevalidated seven-point Likert scale Shriom–Melamed Burnout Questionnaire was used for the assessment of burnout. Data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests by EPI Info and Microsoft Excel 2013.

Result:

19.7% bank officers have pathological burnout followed by 55.1% of bank officers who are at the brink of developing burnout. Severe stress was found only among 7.9% bank officers, whereas burnout was present in 19.4%. A positive correlation was found between stress and burnout.

Conclusion:

It was found that stress and job burnout are linked but do not entirely overlap, with individuals having a high risk of job burnout experiencing only moderate stress. Therefore, perceived stress cannot be taken as the only indicator of risk of burnout.

INTRODUCTION

The term “burnout” has been a word studied from many decades, WHO recently (2019) added Burnout in ICD 11 and classified it as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”[1] It is characterized by three dimensions: (1) feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion, (2) increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job, (3) Reduced professional efficiency.[2,3] Burnout is often mistaken for stress, whereas it is one of the consequences of stress when not managed successfully.[4] Stress is different from burnout in many ways. Stress is characterized by over engagement where emotions are conventionally overactive. Stress leads to apprehensiveness disorders, loss of energy, and the primary damage is physical whereas burnout is characterized by disengagement where emotions are blunted thus engendering helplessness and hopelessness leading to detachment and depression, loss of motivation, ideals, and the primary damage is emotional.

The differences clearly draw a better picture for a stressed person who can get a situation under control by managing pressure. Burnout takes away the ability to care about their surroundings let alone acting on it, leading to the outcomes beyond remedy hence establishing the fact that it is more grievous issue to deal with than stress.[4,5]

During the Covid-19 pandemic, health services have been stretched to the limit and the effects of working in high stress situations have been examined thoroughly on health care workers. In this time along with health services, bank services have had to stay functioning without significant relief. Banks experience heavy footfall and the added risk of coronavirus infection has made it difficult for employees to maintain a healthy state of mind. Only a few studies[6,7] have been conducted on the effects of stress and burnout on bank officials and none have been done during the time of the pandemic, which has prompted conduction of this study.

Once the importance of the factors contributing to burnout and its impact on a person's life is established, it will be time to rule out the occupations which are vulnerable to burnout, as it turns out to be a “occupational phenomenon” and not a medical condition.[3]

OBJECTIVES

• To find out the distribution and severity of burnout among officer grade bank employees in Meerut

• To find out the prevalence and severity of stress among officer grade bank employees in Meerut

• To find out the correlation between stress and burnout

METHODS

Study setting

The study was done in the urban block of Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh which consisted of private banks, public sector banks, regional banks and many others. There are more than 400 banks in Meerut serving to a population of approximately 50 lac.

Sample size

As there was no similar study of prevalence on burnout among bank employees in India. By using the formula Z²pq/L², where prevalence was assumed 50% and allowable absolute error was taken 7%, the total sample size come out to be 216 after adding 10% nonresponse rate.

Sampling

A list of private, public sector and regional banks situated in urban block of Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh was obtained. Banks were selected by simple random sampling through computer random table method for our study. In each selected bank, various officer grade bank employees were approached for data collection [Figure 1]. Both males and females officer grade bank employees working in selected banks were taken as study unit. Officer grade bank employees who were absent on the days of data collection and were not willing to participate were excluded from study. Repeated visits to the selected banks were made till our calculated sample size of 216 was achieved.

Figure 1:

Distribution of bank officers according to occupational roles

Questionnaire

The data was collected by using self-designed, semi structured schedule to elicit the necessary information. The questionnaire comprised of two parts of which the first part included sociodemographic characteristics and the second part included a pre validated scale Shriom Melamed Burnout Questionnaire utilized for assessment of burnout. It is a seven-point Likert scale and is designed for quantifying job burnout and has 22 items which consist of the following subscales: physical fatigue (PF), cognitive weariness (Cog), tension (TE), and listlessness (LIS).

Scoring

For each sub scale, the total score is averaged by dividing by the number of items in the domain. A total score in the range of 22 to 154 is converted into the average results for the sets to 4. Average score of 3.76 to 4.75 denotes high risk of burnout under optimal stress at work, while the average 4.76 and above results from denotes pathological level of burnout for which an individual should seek medical attention.[8]

Administration

Written informed consent was taken from participants prior to the interview after explaining the purpose and objectives of the study. We analyzed questionnaire responses using Microsoft Excel and EPI Info software. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to assess the correlation between dependent and independent variables.

Ethical clearance

Ethical approval for this study (Ethical Committee SMC/UECM/2019/57/69) was provided by the Ethical Committee Swami Vivekananda Subharti University, Meerut, on 26 December 2019.

RESULTS

The sociodemographic composition of the study participants is shown in Table 1. The prevalence of (pathological) burnout in our study among bank officers is 19.4%, 55.1% of bank officers belonged to high-risk group of burnout, whereas 25.5% of bank officers belonged to low-risk group of developing burnout. 19.4% bank officers have pathological burnout followed by 55.1% of bank officers who were at brink of developing burnout if do not intervene with necessary preventive measures [Table 2].

Table 1:

Distribution of bank officers according to sociodemographic characteristics (n=216)

Socio demographic variables	Subcategories	Frequency	Percentage
1) Age	Less than 35	139	64.4
	More than 35	77	35.6
	Total	216	100.0
2) Gender	Male	172	79.6
	Female	44	20.4
	Total	216	100.0
3) Religion	Hindu	201	93.1
	Muslim	10	4.6
	Sikh	1	0.5
	Christian	3	1.4
	Others	1	0.5
	Total	216	100.0
4) Marital Status	Married	167	77.3
	Unmarried	49	22.7
	Total	216	100.0
5) Living arrangement after marriage	Unmarried	49	22.7
	Alone	39	18.1
	Together	128	59.2
	Total	216	100.0
6) Type of family	Nuclear	163	75.5
	Joint	53	24.5
	Total	216	100.0
7) Size of family	Less than or equal to 4	151	69.9
	More than 4	65	30.1
	Total	216	100.0
8) Education	Graduation	128	59.3
	Post-Graduation	88	40.7
	Total	216	100.0

Table 2:

Prevalence and Distribution of Burnout in low risk, high risk and pathological burnout categories (n=216)

Scoring key	Type of Burnout	Frequency	Percent
2.75-3.75	Low Risk	55	25.5
3.76-4.75	High Risk	119	55.1
4.76 and above	Pathological	42	19.4
Total		216	100.0

In our study, the four subscales of burnout (physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, tension and listlessness) of SMBQ were analyzed which revealed that 64.4% of participants reported high physical fatigue as seen in Table 3.

Table 3:

Prevalence and distribution of burnout according to subcategories of physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, tension, listlessness (n=216)

Sub Scales of Burnout	Sub Categories	Frequency	Percentage
1) Physical fatigue	Low risk of physical fatigue	77	35.6
	High risk of physical fatigues	139	64.4
	Total	216	100.0
2) Cognitive weariness CW	Low risk of C.W	40	18.5
	high risk of CW	176	81.5
	Total	216	100.0
3) Tension	less tension	33	15.3
	More tension	183	84.7
	Total	216	100.0
4) Listlessness	Less listlessness	63	29.2
	More listlessness	153	70.8
	Total	216	100.0

When subcategory of burnout was examined among 216 bank officers, the highest prevalence was found of tension (84.7%) followed by (81.5%) cognitive weariness, (70.8%) listlessness, and (64.4%) physical fatigue. Surprisingly physical fatigue was the least responsible factor of burnout in our study. The prevalence of (>27) severe stress was found only among 7.9% bank officers whereas burnout was 19.4% which means the risk of suffering burnout was not only present in severe stress officers but also moderately stressed officers (77.3%) [Table 4].

Table 4:

Prevalence and Distribution of stress according to level of severity (n=216)

Scoring key	Type of Stress	Frequency	Percent
0-13	Mild	32	14.8
14-26	Moderate	167	77.3
27-40	Severe	17	7.9
Total		216	100.0

The subcategories of burnout were correlated positively with stress except listlessness which was negatively correlated that indicates burnout candidate lacks interest to do his job [Table 5]

Table 5:

Correlation of sub - categories of Burnout with Stress (n=216)

Correlation of Scale I, III & IV with scale II subscales (P.F, C.W., Tension, listlessness)
Scales applied in bankers	Correlation	Physical Fatigue (PF)	Cognitive weariness (C.W.)	Listlessness	Tension
PSS (First Scale)	Pearson correlation	0.658**	0.360**	-0.559**	0.285**
	P	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
	n	216	216	216	216

^**Pearson's correlation coefficient, P<0.05

DISCUSSION

Burnout has been perceived to occur only to very few individuals in any given job and both it and stress have often been conflated with each further trivializing its impact as a widespread occupational phenomenon.

In our study, it was found that stress and job burnout are not entirely linked, with individuals otherwise claiming to be experiencing only moderate stress have a high risk of job burnout. Therefore, perceived stress cannot be taken as the only indicator of risk of burnout meaning that another strategy for timely detection of burnout in high-risk fields is required. These high-risk fields have to include a new focus on the mental as well as the physical health of their employees. Surprisingly majority (85%) of bank officers scored high on cognitive weariness which suggests that in our study participants had more cognitive exhaustion than physical exhaustion responsible for burnout. When examined all subcategories (physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, tension, and listlessness) of burnout were correlated positively with stress except listlessness which was negatively correlated which was found similar when compared to a study conducted on bank employees by Khattak et al. in 2011.[9,10] In the study, 19.4% of the participants had burnout levels above the cut-off for clinically relevant burnout symptoms that was more than (12.3%) found in the participants of a study conducted by Jocić et al. (2018)[11] and (5%) in a police officers’ study conducted by Rene et al. (2019).[12] In the present study, 55.1% of participants were found at brink of developing burnout if the necessary intervention was not done which was more than the (49%) prevalence that was found in a study conduct by Al-Khatani and Allam et al. (2014)[13] but similar (55.78%) to prevalence of burnout found in a study conducted by Amigo et al. (2014)[14]

In our study, the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was applied to measure participants’ levels of perceived stress, higher scores are indicative of more pronounced subjective stress perceptions. Surprisingly only 7.9% participants belonged to severe stress level in our study, whereas majority (77.3%) of participants were recognized as moderately stressed employees. The study by Kumar, Sundaram (2014)[15], and Unnikrishnan (2013)[16] highlights the prevalence of moderate to severe stress was found out to be 75.5% and 59.5%, respectively that is less when contrasted to our study.

The main limitation of the study has been related to the hesitation of bank officers to participate in survey due to tight working schedule and workload.

There are very few prevalence studies on burnout among bank employees globally and no single study was done in India, mostly studies highlighted only the impact of burnout which makes the comparison difficult for our study.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of (>27) severe stress was found only among 7.9% bank officers, whereas burnout was 19.4%, which means the risk of suffering burnout was not only present in severe stress officers but also in moderately stressed officers (77.3%).

The correlation of burnout with PSS was found out to be significant indicating that burnout increases with increased perception of stress.

At bank level, quarterly/biannually screening and assessment of burnout should be done. The focus should be on the risk factors so that the emphasis is on the high-risk candidates and not just on the high-risk candidates and not just on pathological burnout candidates. In the case of burnout, the emphasis should be laid on primary prevention rather than secondary and tertiary care. Necessary steps should be taken to prevent burnout from occurring rather than treating.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.