Comparison of the Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Therapy and Metacognitive Therapy on Job Burnout of Mashhad Legal Medicine Employees

Honarvar, Zohreh; Doustkam, Mohsen; Toozandehjani, Hasan

doi:10.22055/psy.2023.40956.2862

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Therapy and Metacognitive Therapy on Job Burnout of Mashhad Legal Medicine Employees

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Zohreh Honarvar ¹

Mohsen Doustkam ²

Hasan Toozandehjani ³

¹ Ph.D. student, Department of Psychology, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran

³ Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22055/psy.2023.40956.2862

Abstract

Introduction
The prerequisite for the development of any organization is to have healthy and efficient human resources. Numerous factors are effective in creating the physical and mental health of employees of an organization as well as their efficiency, the most important of which is the cause of burnout. Burnout typically begins with abnormal reactions to conflict, failure, and job stress, and finally, it impairs individual performance. Jobs that have more stress and responsibilities are more exposed to it. Due to the fundamental and decisive role of Legal Medicine in appeal court cases, and also in dealing with annoying issues and crime scenes, Legal Medicine employees face a lot of stress in their careers. The organizational consequences of job burnout include reduced productivity and increased health costs.
According to the mentioned materials and considering the importance of the subject of burnout in Legal Medical workers and the injuries affected by it, the need for further investigation and research was observed to reduce its harmful and destructive effects. The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy and metacognitive therapy on job burnout of Legal Medicine employees.
Method
This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design with a control group of Mashhad Legal Medicine employees in 1399. Using the available sampling method after initial evaluation and fulfillment of research conditions, 45 people were selected and were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group received behavioral activation therapy the second group received metacognitive therapy and the third group was placed on the waiting list as a control group. To collect information, Meslach burn was used. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated by the method of Cronbach's alpha, and its value was obtained above 0.7 for all three items of the questionnaire. Likewise, content validity was used to test the validity of the questionnaire, for which the questionnaires were approved by the relevant expert.

Results
Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to analyze the data. According to the F calculated at the level of 0.05, both treatments were effective in the index of job burnout. The results showed that behavioral activation therapy and metacognitive therapy led to changes in job burnout and its subscales, and in subscales of exhaustion emotional and personal accomplishment decrease, metacognitive therapy had better results than behavioral activation therapy.

Discussion
The results indicate that behavioral activation therapy and metacognitive therapy are significantly effective in the field of mental health of Legal Medicine employees and the importance of psychological care in the workplace becomes more apparent.

Keywords

Behavioral Activation

Burn out

legal Medicine

Meta-Cognitive

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