Validity and reliability of the burnout scale for healthcare workers during the pandemic conditions

The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool that measures burnout in healthcare workers working under pandemic conditions. In order to measure the symptoms of burnout associated with Covid-19, online interviews were conducted with 10 healthcare professionals working during the Covid-19 pandemic period by researchers. Besides, the preliminary items of the 15-item Burnout in Pandemic Scale (BPS) were created by scanning the literature. In order to test the validity and reliability of BPS, 194 healthcare workers and 107 other occupational group members working in Bursa were evaluated via Sociodemographic Data Form, Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and Burnout Scale Short Form (BS-SF) using an online survey method. In the study, Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used to test the validity of BPS. The reliability of BPS was examined by Cronbach's α analysis. Relationships between BPS, BS-SF, and DASS-21 scores in healthcare workers were examined by Pearson Correlation Analysis and Hierarchical Regression Analysis. Besides, changes in psychometric measurement averages according to the demographic characteristics of the participants were evaluated by analyzes such as Independent Groups t-test or Mann Whitney U test. First Level CFA was evaluated using AMOS 22.0 program, other analyzes were evaluated using IBM SPSS 22.0 program. The significance level was accepted as p <0.05 for all analyzes. Considering EFA, the BPS was found to consists of 14 items and 3 factors, and the scale explained 56.67% of the total variance. The goodness of fit values was evaluated to obtained (X2 [74 N = 194] = 131.24; p <0.001; X2 / df = 1.77; (CMIN / DF), RMSEA = 0.06; CFI = 0.94; GFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.92, AGFI = 0.87) as a result of the first level CFA was at a sufficient level. It was found that the prevalence of pandemic-related burnout symptoms ranged from 41.8% to 71.6% according to the BPS items among healthcare workers. The BPS mean scores of healthcare workers were found to be statistically significantly higher than the average of other professions (p = 0.023). It was found that the BPS score averages of the healthcare workers who took active duty in Covid-19 were statistically significantly higher than the averages of the healthcare workers not taking active duty (p = 0.006). It was found that there was a statistically significant positive correlation (p <0.001) in the range of 0.55-0.62 between BPS scores and the BS-SF and DASS-21 subscale scores in health workers. In consideration of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis, 39.7% of the BPS scores of healthcare workers were found to be explained by statistically significant BS-SF scores (p<0.05). The description was observed to increased to 42.7% by adding DASS-21 subscale scores to this model (p<0.05). BPS is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to evaluate burnout symptoms due to Covid-19. Burnout due to the pandemic includes giving up obeying the rules to be followed during the pandemic period, a decrease in the desire to fight the pandemic and the mental and emotional exhaustion caused by the pandemic.