Acceso usuarios
Mario A. Trógolo
, Carlos Luis Spontón
Background: Burnout is a widespread issue in organizational settings, negatively affecting both employees and organizations. While numerous scales have been developed, many have limitations, such as failing to differentiate between depersonalization and cynicism, or using reverse items to assess inefficacy, that compromise their validity and utility. Objective: to develop and validate a short burnout measure (SBM). Method: An instrumental study was conducted using a sample of 1256 information technology (IT) workers from Argentina (56.1% males; age range: 18-59, M = 25.16). Participants completed an online survey including the SBM, along with measures of turnover intention and employee Net Promoter Score. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis comparing one-factor, three-factor, four-factor, higherorder, and bifactor models revealed that the four-factor model –comprising exhaustion, cynicism, depersonalization, and inefficacy– provided the best fit to the data [χ2 (14) = 26.60, p < .05, CFI = .998, TLI = .996, RMSEA = .038 (90% CI [.014, .06]), WRMR = 0.33]. All SBM factors demonstrated satisfactory construct reliability (H coefficients ranging from .77 to .88). Criterion validity was supported by theoretically consistent associations found between SBM dimensions, turnover intention, and employee Net Promoter Score. Conclusion: This study presents a new scale that overcomes key limitations of existing self-report measures by using separate subscales for assessing cynicism and depersonalization and using direct items to assess inefficacy. These features, together with its brevity, make the SBM a practical and psychometrically sound tool for rapidly assessing burnout in IT workers. Study limitations and the need to replicate these findings in different occupational sectors are discussed.
