The Burnout Syndrome in Parents of Children with Disabilities; Construction of a New Research Tool

The article is devoted to the description of the preparation of their own research tool to measure burnout syndrome in parents of children with disabilities. The fi rst part defi nes burnout and presents differences in selected theoretical concepts of the burnout phenomenon. A broader description of the concept of Burisch (1989, 1993) as a theoretical model chosen for the burnout syndrome in parents is the next element. It is necessary for pointing out that differences may exist between professional burnout and the burnout of parents. Next we present research on parental burnout carried out by Polish and foreign authors. In the last part of article, we present the construction and description of the questionnaire scales with two dimensions: emotional exhaustion and helplessness