Islamic music listening, spiritual well-being and burnout of employees in Islamic university

Abstract

In Malaysia, working in a university with Islamic vibes that boost spiritual well-being and reduce burnout needs to be supported with empirical evidence. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between listening to Islamic music, spiritual well-being, and burnout among employees of public universities. A cross-sectional study using an online survey was conducted among 140 employees in a public university during the Covid-19 movement control order in Malaysia (April to May 2021). The set of questionnaires includes socio-demographic data, the types and frequency of music listened by the employees, Modified Maslach Inventory Burnout (MBI), the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) and spiritual well-being (SWB). The data was analysed using SPSS version 26.0, and hypotheses were tested using the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman correlation. The majority of employees listened to music every day, and 51.4% of study participants listened to Islamic music or audio. The study participants have a high level of religiosity (DUREL Mean = 24.02, SD=±2.352), high spiritual well-being (SWB) (Mean= 109.84, SD=±9.014). For the burnout category, there was a low level of depersonalization (Mean= 8.54, SD=±5.728), moderate emotional exhaustion (Mean=20.51, SD=±9.866), and high personal accomplishment (Mean=31.87, SD=±7.956) among employees. SWB correlates positively with personal accomplishment and negatively with emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation (p<.05). The present study highlights that listening to Islamic music has the potential to support the mental well-being and productivity of employees.