Magnitude of relationship between burnout and absenteeism: a preliminary study

This study examined the influence of guilt related to a negative attitude toward patients and its relation with burnout and absenteeism. The sample consisted of 717 nursing professionals. Depersonalization was evaluated by the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Guilt was evaluated by one item. To estimate Absenteeism, participants were asked about the number of workdays they had missed in the past year. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses make it possible to conclude that guilt explains work absenteeism, and the interaction between depersonalization and guilt (Incr. R2 = .008, p < .05) indicates significant differences in the number of work days missed in the last year. Conclusions are limited, as these effects are quite weak: all variables together only explain about 4% of the shared variance in absenteeism. Researchers might assess whether feelings of guilt help explain the relationship between burnout and symptoms such as absenteeism.