Burnout and Quality of Life Among Massage Therapists with Visual Impairment.
Magdalena Wrzesińska, Katarzyna Binder, Klaudia Tabała and 2 others
PMID 29968138WHAT IT FOUND
Among 43 blind or poor-sighted massage therapists in Poland, burnout was generally low.
Quality of life was highest in psychological health and lowest in physical health. This small survey does not show that massage work caused these outcomes.
Key findings
01The 43 participants had low burnout: all had low exhaustion, only five had high cynicism, and only one was below the professional efficacy cut-off.
02On the 0 to 100 quality of life scale, psychological health had the highest score (73.6) and physical health the lowest (61.1).
03Only professional efficacy was positively linked to quality of life in the social relationship domain.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 43 people were studied, and all were members of one association with 50 active members, so the group may not represent other blind or poor-sighted therapists. The study did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that massage work caused low burnout or higher quality of life. Some burnout subscales had weak internal consistency before item removal (exhaustion 0.14, cynicism 0.37), and the MBI-GS has no clinical cut-off; the authors used cut-offs from earlier work. The authors state that the small sample and lack of similar studies make it difficult to generalize.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that massage therapy prevents burnout or improves quality of life. The study described 43 already employed therapists and did not test an intervention.