A Study Of The Occupational Burnout Of Professors At Nanjing University Of Chinese Medicine

Teachers are high vulnerability group for occupational burnout. There have been many studies of the issue among university professors, but rarely among professors at the Universities of Chinese Medicine. This study examines the current status of occupational burnout among a sample of 227 professors at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine as well as the impact of demographic variables on the stress. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) used for the study and subsequent statistical analyses showed that: (1) the professors at the University did not show significantly high level of occupational burnout as a whole; but some demographic groups were much more vulnerable to occupational burnout; (2) male teachers' sense of personal accomplishment was higher than that for female teachers; teachers with a doctoral degree had higher sense of personal accomplishment than that for those without it; (3) teachers aged between 41-50 had the higher level of emotional exhaustion than any other age groups; married teachers had higher level of emotional exhaustion than unmarried teachers; teachers with children had higher level of emotional exhaustion than those without children; teachers with children who were attending junior and senior high school had higher level of emotional exhaustion than those teachers whose children are not attending the grades except the teachers whose children were attending university; teachers of the lowest rank had higher level of emotional exhaustion than those who with higher ranks; teachers who had worked for 6-15 and 16-25 years had significantly higher level of emotional exhaustion than those who worked for less than five years; (4) with the increasing of age, the teacher's emotional exhaustion would increase first and then decrease, with age 41-50 as the cut-off age; (5) with increase of the children's age, the teachers' emotional exhaustion would decrease first around the children's age of attending primary school, increase dramatically around the children's age of attending secondary school, and decrease around the children's age of attending university; (6) teachers who had worked for 6-15 and 16-25 years had significantly higher level of emotional exhaustion than those who had worked for less than five years; as teachers worked for more years, their emotional exhaustion increased first and then decreased, with the working years of 16-25 as a cutting edge; (7) other demographic variables did not seem to show significant impact on burnout. The present findings suggest that more attention should be given to the burnout issue among teachers at the Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine. Teachers themselves also need to develop more effective ways of coping to deal with burnout.