Publication:

Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric evaluation of the Malayalam version of the Oldenburg burnout inventory among secondary school teachers

Background The Oldenburg burnout inventory (OLBI) is a widely used instrument for measuring burnout. It consists of 16 items grouped into two dimensions: exhaustion and disengagement. This study aimed to translate and validate the English version of the OLBI into Malayalam among secondary school teachers in Kerala.

Methods After obtaining permission from the author, we translated the OLBI into Malayalam and validated it following standard guidelines, including forward translation, back translation, and content validation with cultural adaptation. Test-retest reliability was assessed among 40 teachers using SPSS version 28. The internal consistency, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed in STATA/SE 17.0 software, using data from 255 teachers.

Results The OLBI-Malayalam version retained 16 items, all of which demonstrated excellent item-content validity indices (0.83-1.00) and a scale-content validity index of 0.97. The scale demonstrated good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s α values of 0.84 for the total scale, 0.80 for exhaustion, and 0.61 for disengagement. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested a one-factor model that explained 31.2% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated no significant difference between the one-factor and two-factor models, with moderately acceptable fit indices.

Conclusions The translated version of the OLBI offers a validated and culturally adapted tool for assessing burnout among Malayalam-speaking populations. The tool demonstrated a near-stable one-factor structure over the originally conceptualized two-factor model. It holds potential for use in other occupational groups, though further validation is recommended to account for differing job demands and work environments.