Burnout, Depression and Proactive Coping in Underground Coal Miners in Serbia - Pilot Project

Mining is unsurprisingly considered a high-risk occupation because it involves continuous hard labour under highly demanding and stressful conditions. Many of these work stressors can impair individuals’ well-being in both a physiological and psychological sense. The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of burnout and depressive symptoms and to evaluate aspects of proactive coping among underground coal miners in Serbia. The study involved 46 male underground coal miners. Burnout was measured with the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, depression was assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and level of proactive coping was measured with the Proactive Coping Inventory. The results showed a low level of burnout syndrome among the underground coal miners (12.46±4.879). Depression was slightly above the minimum (1.2±2.094), and the majority of the participants had no symptoms of depression (93.5%). Overall, the underground coal miners’ ability to proactively cope with work stress was very good (42.17±6.567). This is in contrast to the findings of the few previous international studies and is a good basis for further research using a larger sample in Serbia.