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This research relates Burnout Syndrome (BS) with the Body Mass Index (BMI) among middle and senior managers of the Mexican manufacturing industry. Even though BS incidence is high in the Mexican industrial population, few systematic studies have explored BS and its relationship with other health problems, such as obesity. The goal of this research is to determine the relationship between BS and the BMI in employees with normal weight, overweight, and obesity. We present three structural equation models to relate BS and the BMI. The BMI ranges were determined according to the parameters (normal weight, overweight, and obesity) proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The sample includes 361 employees that voluntarily answered a 31-item questionnaire. We measure the levels of BS using the Maslach Burnout Inventory–General Survey (MBI-GS) and analyze anthropometric and sociodemographic data from the participants. Then, we determine the relationships between the variables through structural equation models and estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects in the three models, which show acceptable reliability. As main findings, the normal weight model has a larger explanatory power than the overweight and obesity models. The same research hypotheses were tested and the effects of BS on the BMI differ across the three models. Such results are presented by taking into account that obesity and overweight require additional factors, such as genetic factors and personal eating habits, to be better explained.

The confinement that COVID-19 has brought about has had a negative influence on people’s psychological health. However, this impact is not widespread throughout the population, and men and women may be affected differently and it is not known what protective factors may exist. In this sense, physical activity has classically been shown to be a habit associated with psychological health. The study aimed to analyze the impact of confinement on psychological health (psychological well-being, coping, emotions, and perception of daily difficulties), taking into account gender, and perceived changes in physical activity. After the project was approved by the University’s Ethics Commission, the participants, after signing the informed consent, completed the online questionnaires during the days from 6 to 20 April, the time when, in Spain, confinement was in place and the highest peak of deaths and infections from COVID-19 occurred. A total of 457 Spanish participants (247 men and 210 women) were evaluated in psychological well-being, in its adaptation to Spanish, in coping, with the Spanish adaptation of the COPE Inventory, in daily habits and difficulties (ad hoc questionnaire) and the level of physical activity they had (sedentary, active, and federated players) was recorded. Besides, the perceived change in physical activity due to confinement was recorded. The results showed that perceived emotions, difficulties for certain routines, psychological well-being, and coping differed according to sex. On the other hand, depending on the change in physical activity habits, it was observed that participants who increased their physical activity responded differently in the perception of emotions, and difficulties for routines and in psychological well-being. Finally, differences were also observed in most variables between sedentary, active, and federated participants. Results are discussed highlighting the importance of physical activity as a moderating factor of the impact of confinement.

Burnout syndrome is an important psychosocial risk in the job context, especially in professions with a strong social interaction, as in the case of teaching. This study analyses the role of burnout in the psychophysiological responses to a work day in teachers. High burnout was related to worse mood, and higher perceived stress throughout the work day. Moreover, burnout is positively related to systolic blood pressure and negatively related to salivary cortisol levels at the beginning of the work day. Higher scores of burnout in teachers are also related to lower heart rate in the middle of the work day. The psychophysiological responses to a work day are specifi cally associated with the different burnout subscales (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment). Men presented higher diastolic blood pressure than women at the beginning and the middle of the work day. Burnout could induce an alteration in mood together with a dysregulation of the cardiovascular activity and the hypothalamopituitary-adrenocortical axis functioning in response to a work day in teachers. Moreover, our results offer different burnout-dependent patterns of relationships between psychological, cardiovascular and cortisol responses, and they suggest that gender plays a moderator role in the cardiovascular response to a work day.

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The burnout syndrome is an important psychosocial risk in the job context, especially in professions with a strong social interaction, as in the case of teaching. High levels of burnout have been related to negative psychological indicators and hormonal alterations. This study compares job satisfaction and the cortisol awakening response (CAR) in teachers scoring high (HB) and low (LB) on burnout. HB teachers showed lower job satisfaction and no significant differences in the CAR when compared with the LB group. The results of the study suggest a general dissatisfaction with work along with a different functioning of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in HB teachers. Although non significantly, they showed a lower magnitude of the CAR than LB teachers. When considering the whole sample, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization correlated negatively and personal accomplishment positively with each subscale of the job satisfaction questionnaire whereas cortisol levels or CAR did not correlate significantly with both burnout subscales and job satisfaction. These results should be taken into account when working to prevent burnout in teachers, as the modified parameters could be considered indicators of the onset or development of the syndrome.El síndrome de estar quemado o burnout es un factor importante de riesgo psicosocial en el contexto laboral, especialmente en profesiones que tienen una alta interacción social, como es el caso de la enseñanza. En este sentido, altos niveles de burnout han sido asociados a indicadores psicológicos negativos y a alteraciones hormonales. El objetivo de este trabajo es comparar la satifacción laboral y la respuesta matutina de cortisol en profesores con altas y bajas puntuaciones en burnout. Los profesores con altas puntuaciones en burnout mostraron menor satisfacción laboral que los de puntuaciones bajas, aunque no se encontraron diferencias significativas en la respuesta matutina de cortisol. Estos resultados sugieren que los profesores con altas puntuaciones en burnout tienen una estado general de insatisfacción en el trabajo, junto a una ligera alteración del funcionamiento del eje hipotálamo-hipófiso-adrenal, ya que aunque las diferencias no alcanzaron la significación estadística, estos profesores mostraron menor respuesta matutina de cortisol que los de puntuaciones bajas. Al considerar toda la muestra, las subescalas de despersonalización y cinismo se asociaron negativamente mientras que la de eficacia profesional lo hizo positivamente con la satisfacción laboral. Por otro lado, no se obtuvieron correlaciones significativas entre los niveles de cortisol o la CAR y las diferentes subescalas de burnout o la satisfacción laboral. Estos resultados tienen que ser tenidos en cuenta para trabajar en la prevención de burnout en profesores, ya que los parámetros alterados podrían ser considerados como indicadores de la aparición o desarrollo del síndrome.Palabras clave: burnout, satisfacción laboral, respuesta matutina de cortisol, profesores, experimento.

Gender differences in cardiovascular variables in response to laboratory stressors have been described. In real situations, although occupational stress is considered one of the major causes of cardiovascular diseases, there are few studies that follow a psychophysiological approach, such as in a work context. In these settings, excessive environmental demands might produce nonadaptive emotional responses, depending on the way people perceive their work settings. Concretely, there are few published studies that take into account the changes of perceived stress (PS) and/or heart rate (HR) considering the ecological moment. Thus, our interest was to study the changes of both variables during two working days (WDs). Moreover, we considered the effect of gender as a modulator of these variables. For this purpose, 35 full-time school teachers participated in the research. PS was measured by means of a self-report and HR was continuously recorded during the WD at the beginning and end of an academic year. Results showed changes in HR during the WD and higher PS levels when teachers were with students on both WDs. Furthermore, there were increases in both variables at the end of the academic year. In spite of the similar responses in both variables studied, HR and PS did not correlate significantly. We conclude that our data, taken from a real work setting, show that HR and PS responses to a WD in teachers seems to be different, showing some gender differences.