Reducing Professional Stress and Burnout in the Professional Life of the Clergy in the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church

Abstract

The clergy belong to a helping profession with an increased risk of professional stress and burnout. Their day-to-day duties involve a high threshold of social interaction, which affects the psycho-emotional state of the clergy. The aim of the research is to investigate professional stress and burnout among the clergy of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in order to develop proposals for reducing the risks of stress and burnout.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to investigate professional burnout.  And the second survey was the Professional Stress Survey of Organizational Process Management. 80 respondents representing the clergy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia participated in the survey. The results of the research show that: The level of professional stress indicates a lack of collegial support. The level of burnout for the clergy is low, with a medium level in a separate subscale (depersonalization), Statistically significant relationships were identified between professional stress and burnout.