Burnout and Workload Among Health Care Workers in Bulgaria

This study aimed to estimate the relationship between workload and burnout syndrome among healthcare professionals working in training or non-training healthcare organizations in Bulgaria. The study was conducted using the web-based Bulgarian Version of the Boyko’s Burnout Inventory, which contains 84 statements grouped in 12 symptoms and 3 phases, and questions related to the weekly workload. The data were exported directly to SPSS 17.0 statistical software and analyzed with descriptive statistics and Spearman’s correlation coefficient r_s. The level of significance of 5% probability (p < 0.05) was adopted. Based on the responses to the Boyko’s Inventory 29.0% of the respondents had a high level of emotional exhaustion, 51.6% had a high level of resistance, and 31.50% had a high level of strain. The high level of burnout was found among 27.4%. The average weekly working hours for all respondents were 43.78 ± 16.51 h. For specialists who have been diagnosed with burnout, the average weekly working time was 48.47 ± 13.72 h. For those who did not receive a positive diagnosis, the average weekly duty time was 37.72 ± 15.22 h. There were average correlations between the level of burnout and the weekly working hours (r_s = 0.286; p = 0.001).