Ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors associated with burnout syndrome in university professors

Abstract

Introduction: Occupational stress affects a large part of the world's population at some point in life, seriously affecting workers in all areas and contributing to the increase in associated occupational disorders, especially burnout syndrome (BS). Ergonomics, in the sense of meeting the demands related to the work environment, proposes to deal preventively with all issues related to the worker's health. Objective: The objective of this research is to investigate the ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors associated with BS in university professors. Methods: The research was divided into two studies. In the first study, a scope review was carried out on the basis of scientific articles published until 2021 to identify the ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors associated with BS in university professors. In the second study, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, based on scientific articles, focusing on the
types of interventions applied to manage BS in university professors, this study was duly registered in the International Prospective Register of Ongoing Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) with the number CRD42023428101. Results: In the first work, eighteen studies were found in 12 countries, and most used a cross-sectional design. The identified ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors associated with BS were shifts of 8 to 12 hours a day, insufficient breaks between work shifts, class size, home office work, administrative work, and pressure for publications. The second study revealed few randomized controlled studies, most with metadata analysis and with satisfactory quality. The results pointed to two effective interventions (p < 0.05): Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Multidisciplinary Meetings with Discussion Guide. In addition, self-management of stress associated with individual meditation proved to be important for improving HET engagement. Conclusion: This study brought to light the fact that we have little scientific knowledge about BS in HET, either with regard to causality factors, as it was not possible to confirm the causal relationship between
ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors regarding the interventions used. CBT proved to be a very promising alternative, however, more research is needed to replicate the interventions discussed here and investigate other interventions for the prevention of
BS in HET at all stages of the teaching career.