Are Socio-Demographic Factors Associated to Burnout Syndrome in Police Officers?: a Correlational Meta-Analysis

Burnout is considered a long term stress reaction which is seen primarily among professionals who work face-to-face with other people. Socio-demographic characteristics have been suggested as risk factors to its development, although empirical studies have yield contradictory results. The objective of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis of four socio-demographic factors (age, sex, marital status, and number of children) that may be correlated to the Maslach Burnout Inventory dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment) in police officers. These professionals have been considered a high-risk occupational group to suffer burnout due to specific characteristics of their job. We collected 43 empirical studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria: 23 on age, 32 on sex, 9 on marital status, and 4 on number of children. The bivariate correlation coefficient was used as the effect size measure. The results show that all the average effect were small, and the majority of them were not statistically significant. We can conclude that sex and age are factors to discard in the development of the burnout in police officers. We found that many studies did not report enough statistical information to estimate effect sizes. This systematic lack of information is likely to contribute finding contradictory results.