Burnout refers to “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who do ‘people work’ of some kind” (Noosorn & Wongwat, 2010 p. 18). It is a process which commences with excessive as well as prolonged job stress levels. This process becomes complete at a point where the worker puts up with the job in a defensive manner and turns out to be rigid, uninterested and cynical. One of the factors that may lead to crisis workers to experience burnout is that they provide services and assistance to the public and deal with a large number of people most of the time for an extended time period. Practices like these ones may contribute towards having the recurrence of the mental stress as well as physical stress which can in turn result in having boredom, lack of satisfaction in the day-to-day responsibilities and emotional depression. Economic crises with the society, especially in the third world countries, can lead to burnout among the crisis workers. Here, the crisis workers operate under very difficult conditions. These people are exposed to bigger job stress and they are also exposed to a very big sense of great job responsibility. They are also subjected to “frequent overtime work” (Noosorn & Wongwat, 2010, p.18).
One of the strategies for avoiding or preventing burnout is by changing work patterns. This may involve reducing the number of working hours, allowing the workers to take breaks, avoiding overtime work, and taking vocations among other similar measures. Another strategy may involve utilizing social resources. This includes seeking the professional support from the colleagues in the workplace, receiving guidance from the supervisors, family members, mentors and professional counsellors (Maslach, 2007).
References
Maslach, C. (2007). Job burnout: new direction in research and intervention. Current Directions in Psychol. Sci. 12(1), 189-192.
Noosorn, N. & Wongwat, R. (2010). Predictors of burnout among community health personnel of primary care units in the Northern region of Thailand. Journal of Neuroscience and behavioural Health, 2(2), 18 – 22.