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Poor work-related psychological health and professional burnout remain issues of concern among clergy across denominations and across cultures. Maslach's three-component model of burnout remains the most frequently employed conceptualization and measure in clergy research. Maslach proposes a sequential model of burnout. An alternative approach has been offered by the Francis Burnout Inventory that comprises two components. Francis proposes a balanced affect model of burnout according to which negative affect (emotional exhaustion) is offset by positive affect (satisfaction in ministry). This study draws on data provided by around 658 clergy serving in the Church of England to test this balanced affect model. Employing independent measures of burnout, the data demonstrated the significance of the interaction term between positive affect and negative affect in predicting individual differences in burnout. In other words, as positive affect increases the effects of negative affect decrease.

The present study examines the coping strategies of a sample of 637 Church of England rural clergy who are responsible for three or more rural churches, following their completion of the 'Ways of Coping (Revised)' checklist (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985). The data produced suggest that the most frequent coping strategies used by rural clergy in multi-church benefices, are 'self-controlling', 'seeking social support', 'planful problem solving' and 'positive reappraisal'. The strategies of 'confronting coping', 'distancing' 'accepting responsibility' and 'escapeavoidance' are used less frequently. Both emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies were found to be used regularly by rural clergy, and it is suggested that the provision of educational programmes focusing on 'coping strategies' by both the church and healthcare providers, might lead to the enhancement of work-related psychological health among rural clergy.

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