EFFECT OF BURNOUT ON WORK PERFORMANCE OF HELPING PROFESSIONALS: IMPLICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN AFRICA

Helping professionals have significant part to play in the realization of development goals. The maintenance of helping professionals' health and psychological well-being is paramount to their capacity to serve their clients. Regrettably, helping professionals have been found to focus on clients' problems and consistently fail to attend to their well being leading to job burnout. This study therefore examined the effects of burnout on work performance of professionals. This descriptive research adopted an ex-post facto approach. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 750 helping professionals between the ages of 28 and 59 years with mean age of 38years from Lagos and Ogun states, Nigeria. Burnout Questionnaire (BQ) and Helping Profession Work Performance Scale (HPWPS) were used to generate data with . 72 and .68 for test -retest reliability and Cronbach alpha of. 78 and. 76 respectively. Analysis of variance and simple regression analysis were calculated to test the three null hypotheses raised at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed a significant difference in the level of burnout of counsellors, psychiatrists/psychologists, medical practitioners and social workers at F (3,746) = 48.28, and < 0.05 and a significant difference in the level of performance of helping professionals who experienced high, medium and low levels of burnout at F (Z, 747J = 28.56, and <0.05. Also, burnout significantly contributed to the determination of the work performance of helping professionals at R=.815, K=.664, F 0 .749) =50.260; p<.05. The implication of these findings on the attainment of development goals in Africa was discussed. It is recommended that MDG for Africa in the 21st should be revisited to address the burnout status of helping and care giving professionals and that government and non-governmental agencies should develop burnout reduction programme with a view to helping professionals contribute maximally to the realization of MDG for Africa