Objective To assess the relationship between occupational stress and occupational burnout in air traffic controllers.
Methods By cluster sampling, 577 air traffic controllers from an air traffic management bureau were enrolled as study participants. Occupational stress was measured by Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (ERI). Occupational burnout was measured by Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). There were 489 complete questionnaires, and the valid rate was 84.75%.
Results The results of JCQ and ERI showed that the scores of three occupational stress dimensions in the air traffic controllers with occupational stress were higher than the scores in those without (all P<0.05). The levels of occupational stress by JCQ and ERI and the level of occupational burnout were positively correlated (for JCQ,rs=0.15,P<0.05; for ERI,rs=0.44,P<0.05); intrinsic effort and occupational burnout were positively correlated (rs=0.39,P<0.05); however, social support was negatively related to occupational burnout (rs=-0.28,P<0.05). The results of ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that occupational stress by ERI and intrinsic effort were the risk factors for occupational burnout (OR=4.64 and 1.39) (bothP<0.05).
Conclusion There is a correlation between occupational stress and occupational burnout in the air traffic controllers. Stronger occupational stress is associated with increased job burnout.
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