Development and psychometric characteristics of military burnout scale

Abstract: Burnout is an important factor affecting occupational health, which affects individual development and occupational efficacy. Soldiers usually bear special professional responsibilities. The purpose of this study is to develop the military burnout scale and its psychometric examination in Chinese soldiers. We recruited 2406 soldiers from 8 military units in Beijing and Tianjin, China, to participate in a study on the military burnout scale. The 496 participants were involved in exploratory factor analysis, and 511 dates for confirmatory factor analysis. An investigation of current conditions along with cutoff value determination (n=1399) conducted in a double-blind manner. Cronbach α coefficient was employed to evaluate the reliability of the military burnout scale. Finally, receiver operating characteristic curves were analyzed to determine the optimal cutoff value for predicting burnout. Factor analysis revealed that the military burnout scale comprises 5 factors. The χ2/df ratio was 2.432, with an root mean square error of approximation value of 0.053; goodness of fit index, CFI, incremental fit index, and Tucker–Lewis index values were reported as 0.911 and 0.960 respectively across multiple assessments. The correlation coefficient between the military burnout scale and its Chinese counterpart was found to be 0.51 (P<.01). The Cronbach α coefficients for both the overall scale and each individual factor exceeded 0.9, indicating high internal consistency reliability; additionally, retest reliability as well as discriminative and convergent validity criteria met psychological measurement standards. The optimal cutoff value identified was 55, yielding a sensitivity of 0.952 and specificity of 0.906. The military burnout scale demonstrates strong validity and reliability among Chinese soldiers and is suitable for evaluating levels of occupational burnout within this population.