Study of burn-out and associated factors after the occurring of the COVID-19 pandemic situation of flight attendants in Thai Airways International Public Company Limited
Abstract:
Thai Airways International Public Company Limited (THAI) underwent an organizational restructuring after the COVID-19 outbreak, resulting in an impact on its flight attendants. Burn-out is a mental health condition limited to the professional domain. This cross-sectional descriptive study, undertaken with the objective of investigating burnout among flight attendants employed by Thai Airways, was conducted among 358 THAI flight attendants from June to November 2022. The participants completed a self-administered questionnaire including: 1) personal and work-related questionnaire, 2) stressful event questionnaire, 3) questionnaire examining the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, and 4) the Maslach Burn-out Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) Thai version, developed by Chaiyut Kleebbua. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze collected data and identify predictive factors. The prevalence of medium to high scale in emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy among THAI flight attendants of 46.6%, 63.7%, and 56.4%, respectively. Predictive factors of emotional exhaustion included younger age (p = 0.015), increased indebtedness (p = 0.01), schedule dissatisfaction (p = 0.012), a lower number of qualified aircraft (p = 0.007), decreased feelings of work stability (p < 0.001), sleeplessness (p = 0.041), higher stress scores (p < 0.001), and worse mental health (p = 0.011). Predictive factors of cynicism were non-leadership position (p < 0.001), schedule dissatisfaction (p = 0.001), decreased feelings of work stability (p < 0.001), higher stress scores (p < 0.001), and worse mental health (p = 0.015). Only Non-leadership position was associated with professional efficacy (p < 0.001). In conclusion, this study identified associated factors of burn-out in three elements including personal, work-related, and mental health factors which are age, financial stress, schedule satisfaction, feelings of work stability, mental health status, stress levels, and sleep quality.