The Linkage between Social Support, Job Burnout and Health at the Workplace: A Review of the Literature and Model Development

Health status is a critical factor in determining employees’ well-being at the workplace. This is more prevalent among doctors within the public healthcare sector of Malaysia whereby their heavy workload have detrimental consequences on their health which subsequently affects their job performance. In fact, doctors have been found to suffer from burnout issues. In such challenging environment, social support is deemed important in reducing employees’ burnout and enhancing their state of health. Moreover, limited attention has been given at exploring the mechanism with which social support affects employees’ health. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to review the literature and subsequently propose a model linking social support and health among medical doctors in Malaysian public hospitals by using the Job Demand-Resource Model. Job burnout is proposed as a mediator in the above-mentioned relationship

Keywords:

social support , job burnout , health , doctors , Malaysia