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 rs. 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 (rs = 0.286; p = 0.001).