An examination of job stress and its effects on burnout, job satisfaction and job turnover intentions among Regulatory Affairs professionals in New Jersey

Objective: To determine the degree and prevalence of job stress and their relationship with burnout, job satisfaction and job turnover intentions in Regulatory Affairs (RA) professionals.;Methodology: A cross-sectional design utilizing a web-based survey was employed for data collection. Seven hundred and seventy one RA professionals from the member directory of the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) in New Jersey were randomly selected. A web based survey containing the Parker and DeCoittis (2000) scale for job stress, Human Services Scale from Maslach Burnout Inventory (1981) for burnout, Gaither (2008) scale for job satisfaction, Mobley (2006) scale for job turnover intention, and socio-demographics was created using Survey Monkey and sent to the randomly selected sample via email. After 15 and 30 days of the first email, non-responders were again emailed the web-based survey. At the end of the data collection period, all survey responses were imported into SPSS (version 18.0) and analyzed after data cleanup. Reliability, descriptive and bi-variate analyses were conducted.;Results: A net response rate of 20% was achieved (153 out of 771). The mean age of the respondents was M = 43.52 (SD = 11.96) years. 61 male respondents and 66 female respondents responded to the web based survey. 27 respondents did not provide information on gender. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were Non-Hispanic Whites (68%) and married (70%). Approximately quarter (23%) of the respondents earned more than ;Conclusion: RA professionals in New Jersey reported moderate job stress, high burnout, high job satisfaction and moderate job turnover intentions. Results suggested there was no significant relationship between job stress and burnout, job satisfaction and job turnover intention. The lack of significant relationship between job stress and burnout is surprising and differs from findings in the literature. Future studies need to systematically examine why there was no relationship between stress and burnout exists in this profession. While the lack of relationship between job stress and burnout bodes well for the RA profession, nonetheless the fact that RA professionals report high burnout suggests that the profession needs to identify why professionals report high amount of burnout and what can be done to reduce the burnout.