The Development of a Proactive Burnout Prevention Inventory: How Employees Can Contribute to Reduce Burnout Risks

Abstract

Proactive burnout prevention refers to a set of proactive behaviors employees may engage in to prevent burnout. Findings of a previous exploratory qualitative study indicated that employees who had to deal with high demands engaged in specific proactive behaviors in the work, home, and personal domain in order to prevent burnout. To further examine proactive burnout prevention in longitudinal quantitative research and to be able to investigate its effectiveness, an inventory for assessing these kinds of behaviors is necessary. The goal of this study was twofold: 1) to develop an inventory to assess employees’ proactive burnout prevention behaviors and examine its factorial validity, 2) to explore the broader nomological network of proactive burnout prevention behaviors by examining its convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. A two-wave longitudinal survey (T1: N = 343; T2: N = 201) was conducted. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that proactive burnout prevention can be reliably assessed with 40 items that load on 12 factors, indicating 12 separate proactive burnout prevention behaviors. Moreover, exploration of the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the proactive burnout prevention inventory showed promising results, as expected relationships were confirmed for most behaviors. Further research is needed to substantiate the findings and examine the effectiveness of proactive burnout prevention.

Examining the mediating role of resources in the temporal relationship between proactive burnout prevention and burnout

“…Proactive burnout prevention in the work domain was measured at T1 and T2 using 15 items of the Proactive Burnout Prevention Inventory [ 33 ] that assessed increasing/maintaining job control, increasing/maintaining supervisor social support, increasing/maintaining coworker social support, and seeking/performing tasks that energize. Sample items are: “I make sure, I am in control of my workload”, and “I actively take on tasks that enable me to develop myself further”.…”

“…Proactive burnout prevention in the home domain was measured at T1 and T2 using 9 items of the Proactive Burnout Prevention Inventory [ 33 ] that assessed increasing/maintaining home autonomy, increasing/maintaining social support from family/friends, and reducing work-home conflict. Sample items are: “I make sure I can organize my free time myself” and “I make sure I distance myself from work after hours”.…”

“…Proactive burnout prevention in the personal domain was measured at T1 and T2 using 10 items of the Proactive Burnout Prevention Inventory [ 33 ] that assessed improving/maintaining physical health, improving/maintaining psychological wellbeing, and engaging in relaxing activities. Sample items are: “I make sure I engage enough in sports”, and “I try to put stressful situations in perspective” Response categories ranged from 1 ( never ) to 5 (always ).…”

“…Two proactive burnout prevention behaviors specified in previous research [ 7 ] (feedback seeking and reducing hindering job demands) were not included in this study, as the relationship between these proactive burnout prevention behaviors and burnout did not show unequivocal results [ 13 , 33 ].…”

Investigating the temporal relationship between proactive burnout prevention and burnout: A four‐wave longitudinal study

“…(3, 6 and 9 weeks). Based on COR theory and previous study findings indicating that proactive burnout prevention may lead to reduced levels of burnout (Otto et al, 2020), the following hypothesis was developed.…”