Boudoukha A H, Hautekeete M, Abdellaoui S, Groux W, Garay D
EA 3259, UFR de psychologie, laboratoire de psychologie « éducation, cognition & développement », université de Nantes, chemin de la Censive-du-Tertre, BP 811227, Nantes cedex 3, France.
Encephale. 2011 Sep;37(4):284-92. doi: 10.1016/j.encep.2010.08.006. Epub 2010 Oct 18.
Prison is typically considered as a dangerous setting partly because of promiscuity and violence, which leads to a whole series of suffering and frustration among prisoners. Due to their occupation, prison guards must ensure the safety of the inmates, their colleagues, as well as any other persons working in prison and in the prison setting. Thus, correctional guards are the "Bumper excitement" of prison violence and suffer from stressful and traumatic events. Indeed, inmates' sufferings and frustration are firstly expressed towards them because they share daily relationships with inmates. In addition, correctional guards are faced with the high inmate suicide risk. One potential consequence of these chronic stressful situations is burnout. Burnout is described as a three-dimensional syndrome composed of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and sense of lack of personal accomplishment. Burnout is a severe psychological suffering, which can lead to depression. It has been initially identified among persons who are working with patients. Nevertheless, research shows that burnout is not a psychopathology of work but of the relationship with others. In other terms, burnout seems to arise when people share stressful, chronic and violent relationships with someone else. Burnout doesn't appear per se in any international classification of mental disorders: clinicians often use the diagnosis of adjustment disorder.
Our aim is to assess the impact of victimization on burnout among guards in French prisons. Prison guards were chosen for two major reasons. First, the custodial role of correctional officers is typically described as a stressful occupation, sensitive to burnout. Second, prison is generally considered "dangerous". Indeed, victimizations and aggressions frequently occur. Consequently, we hypothesize that burnout levels will be high for prison guards. We also hypothesize that the intensity of the victimizations (verbal, physical or armed aggression) will heighten burnout levels.
Two hundred and thirty-five prison guards were involved. Among these 235 correctional guards, there were 46 women and 188 men, ranging from 22 to 56 years old. Victimizations were very common: more than 87 % had experienced an aggression, whether verbally, physically or armed. They were asked to fill out the French form of the Maslach burnout Inventory (MBI). The MBI is a 22-item self-report measurement that assesses the three dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Items are rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 ("never") to 6 ("every day"). We have statistically created a new global level of burnout with the three dimensions. It is called "burnout level". We have assessed two sets of independent variables (VI): demographic VI (age, sex, tenure, level of studies) and correctional VI (penal status of prison, victimizations). Regarding our dependent variables, we have four levels which are (1) global burnout (GB), (2) emotional exhaustion (EE), (3) depersonalization (D), and (4) personal accomplishment (PA). For the purpose of our study, we carried out variance analyses (Anova) in order to compare the averages of our groups of subjects. Further to Anova, we chose the Bonferroni/Dunn post hoc test.
The results indicate that demographic variables such as age, sex or level of studies have no significant effect on GB, EE, D and PA levels. Tenure has a significant effect on GB and D levels. Concerning correctional variables, results show that the penal status of prison has a significant effect on GB and EE. Prison guards working with inmates incarcerated for more than 5years report higher GB and EE than their counterparts working with inmates not already convicted. Victimizations have a significant effect on GB, EE, D and PA levels. Prison guards with physical or armed aggressions report higher global GB, EE, D and PA levels than prison guards without aggressions. Furthermore, prison guards with physical or armed aggressions report higher global GB and D levels than prison guards with verbal aggressions. Two major points are highlighted by our study. First, characteristics of prison and inmates are related to burnout among prison guards. Second, victimizations lead to burnout.
监狱通常被视为一个危险的场所，部分原因是存在滥交和暴力行为，这给囚犯带来了一系列的痛苦和挫折。由于其职业性质，狱警必须确保囚犯、同事以及在监狱环境中工作的其他任何人的安全。因此，惩教人员是监狱暴力的“缓冲兴奋点”，并遭受压力和创伤性事件的影响。事实上，囚犯的痛苦和挫折首先会发泄在他们身上，因为他们与囚犯有着日常的接触。此外，惩教人员面临着囚犯自杀的高风险。这些长期压力状况的一个潜在后果是职业倦怠。职业倦怠被描述为一种由情感耗竭、去个性化和个人成就感缺失组成的三维综合征。职业倦怠是一种严重的心理痛苦，可能导致抑郁。它最初是在与患者打交道的人群中被发现的。然而，研究表明，职业倦怠不是一种工作心理病理学，而是一种人际关系的心理病理学。换句话说，当人们与他人共享压力大、长期且暴力的关系时，职业倦怠似乎就会出现。职业倦怠本身并未出现在任何国际精神障碍分类中：临床医生通常使用适应障碍的诊断。
我们的目的是评估受害经历对法国监狱狱警职业倦怠的影响。选择狱警有两个主要原因。首先，惩教人员的监管角色通常被描述为一项压力大且易受职业倦怠影响的职业。其次，监狱通常被认为“危险”。事实上，受害和攻击事件经常发生。因此，我们假设狱警的职业倦怠水平会很高。我们还假设受害的强度（言语、身体或武装攻击）会加剧职业倦怠水平。
共有235名狱警参与。在这235名惩教人员中，有46名女性和188名男性，年龄在22岁至56岁之间。受害情况非常普遍：超过87%的人曾经历过攻击，无论是言语、身体还是武装攻击。他们被要求填写法国版的马氏职业倦怠量表（MBI）。MBI是一个包含22个项目的自我报告测量工具，用于评估职业倦怠的三个维度：情感耗竭、去个性化和个人成就感。项目按从0（“从不”）到6（“每天”）的7分制评分。我们通过这三个维度在统计学上创建了一个新的总体职业倦怠水平。它被称为“职业倦怠水平”。我们评估了两组自变量（VI）：人口统计学自变量（年龄、性别、任期、学历水平）和惩教自变量（监狱的刑罚状况、受害情况）。关于我们的因变量，我们有四个水平，分别是（1）总体职业倦怠（GB），（2）情感耗竭（EE），（3）去个性化（D），以及（4）个人成就感（PA）。为了我们的研究目的，我们进行了方差分析（Anova）以比较我们各受试者组的平均值。在方差分析之后s，我们选择了Bonferroni/Dunn事后检验。
结果表明，年龄、性别或学历水平等人口统计学变量对GB、EE、D和PA水平没有显著影响。任期对GB和D水平有显著影响。关于惩教变量，结果表明监狱的刑罚状况对GB和EE有显著影响。与被监禁超过5年的囚犯一起工作的狱警报告的GB和EE水平高于与未被定罪囚犯一起工作的同行。受害情况对GB、EE、D和PA水平有显著影响。遭受身体或武装攻击的狱警报告的总体GB、EE、D和PA水平高于未遭受攻击的狱警。此外，遭受身体或武装攻击的狱警报告的总体GB和D水平高于遭受言语攻击的狱警。我们的研究突出了两个要点。首先，监狱和囚犯的特征与狱警的职业倦怠有关。其次，受害经历会导致职业倦怠。
