title: Job burnout and job wornout as risk factors for long-term sickness absence.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Contingent self-esteem has been assumed to be a risk for burnout-related disorders, and a contingent self-worth notion of job burnout was applied to study the prospective relationship between job burnout and registered episodes of sickness absence of ≥ 60 consecutive days.
  
  
  METHODS
  Job burnout was defined as being in the high quartiles on the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS) scales of exhaustion and cynicism and, in addition, as being above the median on a scale for performance-based self-esteem. Another high exhaustion-cynicism group, a "job wornout" group, was defined as being high on the same MBI-GS scales but having performance-based self-esteem scores below the median. Data were analyzed by a multivariate, logistic regression approach.
  
  
  METHODS
  4,109 public employees in Sweden.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The job burnout group showed an over-risk of long-term sickness absence incidence, both compared with a low exhaustion-cynicism reference group and with the job wornout group after adjustment for several potential confounders. No association with incidence of long-term sickness absence was found for the job wornout group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The differential vulnerability to long-term sickness absence among high exhaustion-cynicism groups suggests that a self-worth perspective of job burnout can be advantageous for prevention of the costly long-term sickness absences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. lennart.hallsten@ki.se
authors.forename: Lennart
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hallsten
authors.forename: Margaretha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Voss
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stark
authors.forename: Malin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Josephson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012649:Self Concept; D018582:Sick Leave; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D055815:Young Adult