Burnout relations with job crafting and job meaningfulness of formal caregivers in Lithuanian long-term care homes

Abstract

The ageing global population poses a huge challenge for national health systems. One of the main concerns is the growing need for geriatric healthcare professionals. However, caregiver for older people as a profession is not popular with entrants on the job market, largely due to particular working conditions which demand from professionals great psychological and emotional proficiency as well as specific physical skills. Consequently, Lithuania is experiencing a drain of healthcare professionals because of large rates of emigration, at the same time as the proportion of older residents is growing and this leads to the unmet demand for qualified care professionals for older people in long-term care services.

The current study followed the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory as a theoretical base to analyse the burnout concept. The JD-R theory looks at the interaction between job demands and resources in order to predict occupational well-being (Bakker et al., 2014). Also, job crafting (measured by Bakker et al., (2014) subscale) and a sense of meaningfulness employees derive from their work, (measured by the Work as Meaning Inventory (Steger et al., 2012)) were included to research as supportive behavioural and individual factors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine which actors can be linked to work burnout among formal caregivers in older people long-term institution: in particular, whether job crating behaviors and presence of a sense of meaningfulness at work are related to burnout. Questionnaires were collected among 151 Lithuanian nurses and nurse aids working in long-term care institution for older people. Statistical quantitative analyses were performed with standard SPSS hypotheses. The general findings of the study suggested that there is a correlation between burnout and type of contract, employees who work full-time are more likely to experience burnout. Also, it was found that job resources feedback and opportunities for development predicted work engagement, which is opposite to burnout.