International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume VI, Issue XI, November 2022|ISSN 2454-6186
Ronald Musinguzi Kersteins1, Wambua Pius Muasa (PhD)2
1The Psycho-Spiritual Institute of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Marist International University College, a Constituency of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa
2Institute of Youth Studies, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Tangaza University College, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya.
Abstract: Burnout in pastoral ministry among the Church ministers is a problem that warrants attention. The current study examined the contributing factors to burnout in pastoral ministry among priest, brothers and sisters in Mbarara Archdiocese of Uganda. Mixed method embedded research design was utilized in the study. A sample size of 165 participants was selected using stratified random sampling. In addition, 10 participants were selected using purposive sampling to gather the qualitative data. A questionnaire and interview guide was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the quantitative data with aid of SPSS. On the other hand, thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. The results reported the major contributing factors to burnout in pastoral ministry among the Catholic priests, brothers and sisters were years spend in pastoral ministry, excessive work, high expectations from self and others and personality issues. Since those who have few years in pastoral ministry are likely to suffer from burnout due to over engagement with emotional issues of their parishioners, the study recommends to Bishops and Major Superiors to create awareness to their members on the need of taking care of their well-being as they serve the needs of others. Also, the Bishops and Superiors with help of mental health professionals such as counselors and psychologists need to come with programs that can enhance personal growth to their members in order to increase awareness of their personalities and to reach to a level of understanding that they cannot meet all the expectations of others.
I. INTRODUCTION
Burnout in pastoral ministry may arise due to situational, such as workload, personality, over commitment and setting of unrealistic job expectations (Gichara, 2017). Maslach and Leiter (2009) have identified two groups of factors, which dominate the person before burnout, as situational, such as workload, role conflict and ambiguity in relations with co-workers, agency policy and personal factors which include: demographic variables (such as age or formal education), personality characteristics, and work-related attitudes. Notably, most of the researches have focused almost exclusively on situational or job factors as main causative factors of burnout. On contrary, this study adopted an existential approach which is concerned with how individuals relate to their objective world, situations and the self. For instance, individual’s personality type can determine how they are likely handle