Job Burnout and Perceived Stress among Bank Officers of Meerut: A Cross Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Burnout is often misconstrued for stress, whereas it is one of the consequences of stress when not managed prosperously. Stress leads to apprehensiveness, loss of energy, and the primary damage is physical. Whereas, burnout is characterized by disengagement where emotions are blunted thus fostering helplessness and hopelessness leading to detachment and despondence, loss of motivation and ideals with the primary damage being emotional. OBJECTIVES: To find out the prevalence and severity of stress and burnout among bank officers in Meerut District and to find the correlation between the two parameters. METHODS: Banks were selected by simple random sampling through computer random table method for our study. Further, officer grade bank employees were approached for data collection. A prevalidated seven-point Likert scale Shriom–Melamed Burnout Questionnaire was used for the assessment of burnout. Data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests by EPI Info and Microsoft Excel 2013. RESULT: 19.7% bank officers have pathological burnout followed by 55.1% of bank officers who are at the brink of developing burnout. Severe stress was found only among 7.9% bank officers, whereas burnout was present in 19.4%. A positive correlation was found between stress and burnout. CONCLUSION: It was found that stress and job burnout are linked but do not entirely overlap, with individuals having a high risk of job burnout experiencing only moderate stress. Therefore, perceived stress cannot be taken as the only indicator of risk of burnout.