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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
overload among women working in the helping professions. At
the same time, the link between work overload and overload of
family responsibilities were investigated. Furthermore, the study
tried to clarify the level and structure of self-care of women in
the context of dual overload.
2 Method
2.1 Research sample
Quota sampling was used to select respondents for the research.
The selection criteria were as follows: women who work full-
time in helping professions and take care of at least one child
(min. age of the youngest child was in the range of 3-15 years).
From 163 respondents, 112 met the criteria. Finally, the research
sample consisted of 112 women, aged between 28-57 years old
(M=37.4 years, SD = 10.43). All respondents worked directly
with their clients and their work experience varied from 1 to 37
years (M = 9.47; SD = 7.67). The following helping professions
were represented in the sample: 59 health professionals, 37
social workers, 16 psychologists. The respondents were
addressed both in person and electronically.
2.2 Measures
The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-
HSS; Maslach et al., 1996). The instrument consists of 22 items
which measure the level of burnout syndrome through three
subscales: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal
accomplishment. For the purposes of this research, only the
emotional exhaustion subscale was used. The emotional
exhaustion subscale measures feelings of being emotionally
overextended and exhausted by one’s work. It consists of 9
items, e.g. "I feel emotionally drained from my work."
Respondents indicate the frequency of experiencing work-related
feelings using a 7-point scale (1 = never; 7 = every day). The
internal consistency estimates (Cronbach´s alpha) for emotional
exhaustion was 0.90 (Maslach et al., 1996). In the current
research, the Cronbach´s alpha estimates were 0.878 for
emotional exhaustion. The English version was created by back-
translation and the validation study of the Slovak version of this
scale is in review (Ráczová, Köverová, in review process).
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983). The
validated Slovak version of this 10-item measure was used to
assess the level of perceived stress among helping professionals
(Ráczová, Hricová, Lovašová, 2018). Respondents are asked to
indicate the frequency of their feelings and thoughts during the
last month on a 5-point scale (1 = never; 5 = very often); e.g. "In
the last month, how often have you felt nervous and "stressed"?".
A higher score indicates a higher level of perceived stress. The
Cronbach´s alpha estimates of the instrument were acceptable
(Cohen et al., 1983). In this research, the reliability (Cronbach´s
alpha) of the perceived stress scale was 0.85.
The scale of Family overload (inspired by
Ištoňová, 2017)
consists of four items ("I can't find the strength and energy at
home to do everything I expect from myself." „I have to do
things in the home that I really don't have the time and energy to
do." "I feel like I do things quickly and maybe less carefully at
home to get things done." "I feel that housework and family care
are so exhausting that I no longer have the energy to devote to
myself. "). The answers are rated on a 5-point scale (1 = totally
disagree, 5 = totally agree). Higher scores indicate higher levels
of overload in the family. The Cronbach´s alpha estimates was
0.87.
The Performed Self-care Questionnaire (VSS, Lichner,
Halachová, Lovaš, 2018) was used to measure the frequency of
engaging in self-care activities, i.e. activities in the area of self-
care that an individual performs intentionally and of his/her own
accord. The present research was based on the concept of self-
care as a comprehensive implementation of these activities
(Moore, 2011). The Performed Self-care questionnaire consists
of 31 items which focus on the following four areas of self-care:
psychological (factor F1, e.g. “I suppress a bad mood.”), work
(factor F2, e.g.: „I use professional education to cope with my
workload.“), health (activities performed in the event of health
problems, factor F3, e.g. “I avoid situations with risk of
disease.”) and physical well-being (factor F4, e.g. “I do exercise
because of keeping fit”). The items in the questionnaire are
answered on a 5-point scale (1 = never; 5 = always). A higher
score indicates a higher level of self-care activities in each of the
four factors. The questionnaire and factors have good internal
consistency (Cronbach’s alpha .76 - .93; Lichner et al., 2018). In
the current research, the Cronbach´s alpha estimates were 0.88
for psychological self-care, 0.79 for work self-care, 0.68 for
health self-care and 0.78 for physical self-care.
2.3 Statistical analyses
Descriptive analyses, differential statistics (Mann-Whitney U
test) and correlations (Spearmen correlation coefficient) were
used in the study. The data were analysed using the IBM SPSS
21.
3 Results
3.1 Descriptive analyses
The main goal of the research was to find out the level of work
overload – both in the form of emotional exhaustion and
perceived stress - as well as the level of family overload in a
selected group of women working in the helping professions.
The results of the descriptive analysis are presented in Table 1.
These indicate that in general, women experience a medium
level of emotional exhaustion (M = 3.56; SD = 1.12), higher than
average level of perceived stress (M = 2.81; SD = 0.47) and
higher level of family strain (M = 2.93; SD = 0.95). It can be
said, albeit with caution, that women experience strain both at
work and at home.
Regarding the level of self-care, the comparison of the four mean
scale scores indicate that the most used self-care activities
among women were the psychological self-care activities
whereas the least used were the physical ones. From the other
ways of self-care, it can be seen that well-being at work and
health self-care were performed more often (more than average).
Table 1: Means, standard deviations and internal consistency
(α) of measured variables (n = 112).
Measure subscales
Mean
SD
Min
Max
Scale range
α
Perceived stress
2.81
0.47
2.21
3.54
1-5
0.851
Emotional exhaustion
3.56
1.12
1.33
5.00
1-7
0.878
Family overload
2.93
0.95
1.13
4.70
1-5
0.873
Self-care – psychological
4.11
0.42
1.06
5.00
1-5
0.881
Self-care - work
3.35
0.77
1.00
5.00
1-5
0.792
Self-care – health
3.82
0.63
1.43
5.00
1-5
0.681
Self-care - physical
3.01
0.86
1.00
5.00
1-5
0.784
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