Existential fulfillment and teacher burnout

The aim of the current study is to determine the prevalence of burnout in primary education teachers and explore the relationship of personal fulfillment – the existence scale – to self-reported burnout scores. 215 primary education teachers in the Netherlands participated in a cross-sectional study using an anonymous, mailed survey. Personal fulfillment in one’s existence was measured by the Längle, Orgler and Kundi (2003b) existence scale that consists of four subscales, i.e. “self-distance”, “self-transcendence”, “freedom” and “responsibility”. Burnout was measured by applying the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Regression analysis shows that the lower the scores on responsibility and self-distance the higher the scores on emotional exhaustion. There is also an inverted relationship between self-transcendence and depersonalization: the lower the scores on self-transcendence the higher the scores on depersonalization. Responsibility and self-transcendence are significantly related to personal accomplishment. Teacher age correlates only with the latter burnout dimension: the younger teachers are the more they have a sense of high personal accomplishment.