Coping During Public Service Delivery: A Conceptualization and Systematic Review of the Literature

The Conservation of Resources (COR) model of burnout (Hobfoll & Freedy, 1993) suggests that resources are differentially related to burnout dimensions. In this paper, I provide a meta-analysis of the social support and burnout literature, finding that social support, as a resource, did not yield different relationships across the 3 burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment), challenging the COR model. However, when considering the source of the social support (work vs. nonwork) as a moderator, I found that work-related sources of social support, because of their more direct relationship to work demands, were more closely associated with exhaustion than depersonalization or personal accomplishment; the opposite pattern was found with nonwork sources of support. I discuss the implications of this finding in relation to the COR model and suggest future research directions to clarify the relationship between resources and burnout dimensions. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved