The Francis Burnout Inventory: Testing the balanced affect model among Methodist circuit ministers in Great Britain

The Francis Burnout Inventory (FBI) conceptualised poor work-related psychological health in the terms of the classic model of balanced affect proposed by Bradburn. Operationalised specifically for application among clergy and religious professionals, in the FBI negative affect is assessed by the 11-item Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and positive affect is assessed by the 11-item Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS). In the present study the FBI was completed by 803 Methodist ministers in Great Britain together with two independent measures hypothesised as reflecting the consequence of burnout, dissatisfaction with present appointment, and thoughts of leaving ministry. These data were employed to test the significance of the interaction between SEEM and SIMS in predicting these independent measures. In support of the theory of balanced affect, these data demonstrated that the mitigating impact of positive affect increased with increasing levels of negative affect