Correlations between Perfectionism, Stress, Psychopathological Symptoms and Burnout in the Medical Field

AbstractThe burnout syndrome among the medical professionals negatively affects not only the individual and the organization, but also the patients. Most of the times, burnout represents a reaction to stress.The aim of this study was to analyze the correlations between perfectionism, perceived stress, burnout and psychopathological symptoms in medical personnel (N = 72, Mage = 40.3; SD = 9.24) from a private hospital from Bucharest. The measures that we used were Perfectionism Inventory (Hill et al., 2004), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10; Cohen et al., 1983), Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES, Maslach & Jackson,1986) and The Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1983). The obtained results were presented according to participants’ profession, on two levels of analysis: doctors versus nurses. Overall, our study indicated the fact that the associations between perfectionism tendencies, perceived stress, burnout and psychopathological symptoms in medical employees were positively and statistically significant. Also, the level of stress perceived by nurses was highly correlated with somatization and hostility symptoms, while stress perceived by doctors was weakly associated with sensitivity and depression symptoms