Volunteer profile as a predictor of volunteer burnout

Relevance. The article explores the phenomenon of volunteer burnout within the context of the institutional characteristics of their activity. Based on the analysis of modern domestic and foreign approaches, a shift in research focus from the personal characteristics of volunteers to institutional factors, in particular, to the profile of volunteer activity, is justified.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the analytical and structural features of psychic burnout among volunteers with different types of activity orientation.

Materials and Methods. The empirical sample comprised 194 volunteers. The diagnostic toolkit included the "MBI" questionnaire (C. Maslach, S. Jackson, adapted by N. E. Vodopyanova) and the emotional burnout diagnostics method by V. V. Boyko. Mathematical and statistical data processing was carried out using the StatSoft STATISTICA 10 software package.

Results. At the analytical level, it was established that the burnout symptom complex in non-career-oriented volunteers is characterized by the formation of the "Resistance" and "Exhaustion" phases while the "Tension" phase remains unformed, which manifests as a tendency to withdraw from the activity. Conversely, career-oriented volunteers, with a formed "Resistance" phase, demonstrate a latent process of "Tension" and "Exhaustion" phases formation, which expresses itself in the reduction of personal accomplishments. The trigger of burnout for respondents with a pragmatic motivational vector is the frustration of expectations: under conditions of routine labor, a deficit of expert recognition, and a mismatch between tasks and internal forecasts, their self-efficacy decreases significantly.At the structural level of analysis, it was revealed that the burnout structure of career-oriented volunteers is more integrated and consolidated (structure organization index, SOI = 283) than that of the non-career-oriented cohort (SOI = 54). The discovered moderate correlation between the structural rank indicators (r = 0.57 at p < 0.05) indicates their pronounced heterogeneity.

Conclusions. The obtained data prove that career-oriented volunteer activity acts as a significant latent predictor (determinant) of psychological burnout, specifying its structure, dynamics, and substantive content.

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