Discussion

The return rate was significantly lower than expected – an analysis of studies[1] indicated that a response rate, where return was required by mail, would give a mean response rate of 67%: as stated earlier the actual return rate was approximately 31%.

The results gained from both scales of The Francis Burnout Inventory generally show high levels of satisfaction in ministry and low levels of emotional exhaustion.

This is contrary to the statement in the introduction to this work which referred to anecdotal evidence being that levels of exhaustion would be high and those of satisfaction would be low. This is not borne out within the writing here.

There are a number of possible reasons for this, and one of them may be in connection with the low rate of response.

It was stated in the methodology that a concern would be that receipt of the survey could be seen as “another piece of administration”, and could be discarded. It could also be due to a possible culture where admitting “officially” that things are not going well would be seen as a weakness, or that in such a small world there can be no anonymity. Lehr refers to this as “denial”[2].

However, even within this small sample, which may not be representative due to the poor response rate, there are certainly signs that the balance of work and personal life is not being met in all cases: 56% of respondents in D2 stating that they did not have sufficient personal/ family time: 46% overall saying that is the case.

Individual questions do also raise some points of concern, including the 11% of respondents who stated that “they were invaded by sadness they could not explain” and the 36% who state that “fatigue and irritation are part of my daily experience”. These rates are higher than those identified in the survey which tested the inventory which showed a 7% and 26% response respectively.[3]

In addition there were 8 respondents who scored more highly on the emotional exhaustion scale than on the satisfaction scale (14%), which may raise possible flags of concern for those individuals; however the levels of emotional exhaustion are not excessively high.

Generally the levels of Satisfaction in Ministry, as evidenced by responses to the survey, are very high, with more than 3 out of 4 agreeing with all of the statements on this scale, and nine out of 10 stating that they are glad they entered the ministry.