Psychometric properties of the 'Spanish burnout inventory' among employees working with people with intellectual disability.
The Spanish Burnout Inventory is a valid 20-item, four-factor tool that includes guilt—use it to screen burnout in Spanish-speaking ID staff.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McGeown et al. (2013) tested a 20-question Spanish Burnout Inventory on 697 workers who support people with intellectual disability.
They used factor analysis to see if the survey grouped into four clear burnout themes.
All staff worked in Spanish ID services and answered the paper anonymously.
What they found
The survey held together as four factors: enthusiasm toward clients, psychological exhaustion, indifference, and guilt.
Internal consistency was high for every factor, so the tool looks reliable.
In short, the Spanish Burnout Inventory is ready for Spanish-speaking ID staff.
How this fits with other research
Cameron et al. (1996) did the same math trick earlier. They factor-analyzed the DBC and found six child psychopathology clusters in kids with ID.
Both studies prove factor analysis can give clear, usable buckets for ID work, just aimed at different targets.
Kamana et al. (2024) and Yang (2022) show the next step: once you spot burnt or untrained staff, BST plus feedback fixes their practice.
Use the inventory to flag burnout, then run BST to rebuild skills.
Why it matters
You now have a free, quick screen that speaks Spanish and catches guilt, a feeling other burnout tools skip.
Give it to new hires, to teams after incident spikes, or to bilingual staff who may hide stress.
Pair results with on-the-job BST shown in Kamana et al. (2024) so exhausted staff learn, stay, and serve clients better.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Burnout has been recognised as an important stress-related problem for employees working with people with intellectual disability. Researchers have been troubled by some of the psychometric limitations of the questionnaires developed to evaluate burnout. This study was designed to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish Burnout Inventory. METHOD: The sample consisted of 697 Spanish employees working in intellectual disability services. The instrument is composed of 20 items distributed in four dimensions: Enthusiasm towards the job, Psychological exhaustion, Indolence and Guilt. The psychometric properties were examined through the following analyses: confirmatory factor analysis and reliability. To assess the factorial validity of the Spanish Burnout Inventory, four alternative models were tested. RESULTS: The four-factor model obtained an adequate data fit for the sample. The four sub-scales exhibited high reliability, with Cronbach alphas exceeding the critical value of 0.70. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence showing the adequate psychometric properties of an alternative burnout measure that could facilitate the diagnosis of individuals with burnout. It recommends taking feelings of guilt into consideration in interventions designed to improve staff burnout.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2013 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2012.01591.x