title: Efficacy or inefficacy, that's the question: burnout and work engagement, and their relationships with efficacy beliefs.
abstract: We challenge traditional view that lack of efficacy - measured with the corresponding reversed efficacy scale (Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI) - is a burnout dimension. Instead, we claim that in addition to exhaustion and cynicism, inefficacy - measured with a newly developed scale - characterizes burnout. MBI-efficacy is apparently related to work engagement, considered as the positive antithesis of burnout. We performed Structural Equation Modeling in two samples of Spanish (n=239) and Dutch (n=235) university students, and two Spanish employee samples, working in various jobs (n=342) and working with information and communication technologies (n=283). Our expectations were largely confirmed: (1) compared with efficacy beliefs inefficacy beliefs relate more strongly to the other two burnout components; (2) the alternative three-factor burnout model including inefficacy fits better to the data than the traditional model including efficacy; (3) a model with inefficacy loading on burnout and efficacy loading on engagement fits the data. It is suggested that an inefficacy scale rather than a reversed efficacy scale should be used to assess burnout in future studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands. W.B.Schaufeli@fss.uu.nl
authors.forename: Wilmar B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Schaufeli
authors.forename: Marisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salanova
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D004526:Efficiency; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009426:Netherlands; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013030:Spain; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology*