The effects of work conditions on burnout and depression among Malaysian spouses: A crossover explanation

ABSTRACT

The aim of the current research is to investigate the effect of work conditions on job strains, including burnout and depression. In addition, we are interested to know how strains cross over between spouses at home. We predicted that job demands would lead to employees’ burnout and depression, and then cross over to their spouse at home. A total of 150 dyads (each consisting of both husband and wife) were included in this study. All participants were from dual-earner families. The hypotheses were tested using the structural equation modeling (SEM) AMOS software. Firstly, we discovered that work conditions predicted husbands’ burnout and depression but not that of wives. Secondly, husbands’ burnout and depression were found to cross over to their wives. However, no crossover effects were observed from wives to husbands. The contributions of the study are then discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Job demands
• burnout
• depression
• crossover

Declaration of interest

This study was not funded by any grants. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.