The Relationship between Work Burnout and Employees' Mental Health as Measured by GHQ-28: A Field Study Using a Sample of University Lecturers

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between work burnout and employees' mental health. Burnout has been defined as the suffering of employees from exhaustion (physical energy), and disengagement (emotional energy) necessary to perform work tasks. The sample consisted of 269 university lecturers. The sample filled two questionnaires. The first one is an Arabic version of The Olenberg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) and the second one is the General Health Questionnaire GHQ-28. Descriptive and advanced statistics such as zero order correlations and linear regression employed to analyse the data obtained from the participants in the study. The statistical analysis revealed a significant correlation exists between burnout and mental health (t= 24.25, ? ? 0.01). Furthermore, the results of linear regression indicated that mental health (in comparison with work load, rank, gender and age) is the strongest predictor of burnout. Some practical and theoretical implications were discussed.