Measure and prevalence of burnout syndrome on school management

Since the American Freudenberguer mentioned in 1974 the burnout term to define work-related tiredness more than three decades ago, nobody has disputed the importance of burnout syndrome as a decisive factor of the professional life. Otherwise, it is accepted the main role of the head teachers in the smooth running of school. That is why this paper analyzes burnout syndrome on school management, contributing three significant contributions. Firstly, an original and unpublished instrument prepared for this survey in order to asses head teachers' burnout syndrome according to the theoretical classic model of Christina Maslach. In particular, it is presented an inventory (questionnaire) with high technical quality formed by 16 items organised in three scales. Secondly, relevant data on the different impact of the syndrome show that most of the head teachers feel low degree of emotional exhaustion, high personal accomplishment and negligible depersonalization. Moreover, those ones with high level of emotional exhaustion feel lower personal accomplishment and greater depersonalization. Thirdly, based on the data collected about depersonalization dimension (low measuring reliability, low correlation with personal accomplishment and minimum impact), it is put in question whether this dimension is necessary to considerer head teachers' burnout syndrome.