THE FACTOR STRUCTURE OF THE MASLACH BURNOUT INVENTORY IN 2 SWEDISH HUMAN-SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

The Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI, is a well established measure of b urnout. Its validity outside the USA is, however, uncertain. The aim o f the present study was therefore to apply the MBI on personnel in two Swedish human service organizations, comparing factor solutions and s coring norms to the original results. The population consisted of 5730 employees in the Social Insurance Organization (SIG) and the Individu al and Family Care section (IFC) of the social welfare agencies. Princ ipal components analysis, principal axes and alpha factor analyses wer e performed, all with varimax rotation. The suggested three factor sol ution showed to be remarkably stable irrespective of type of analysis. Score levels were somewhat lower on two subscales in the Swedish popu lation. The conclusion is that the psychometric properties of the MBI seem to be very satisfactory and stable, at least in comparison betwee n Sweden and USA. It is suggested that the dimensionality of MBI is ra ther invariant, but that the score levels covary with national, cultur al, or professional contexts within the human services.