Article
Background. Work stress is among the most consequential occupational health challenges in contemporary labour markets, with documented associations with reduced employee psychological well-being. Emotional exhaustion — the core affective component of burnout — has been theorised as a central mechanism linking chronic occupational demands to compromised psychological health, yet formal indirect-effect models examining this pathway in general working-adult samples remain comparatively sparse.
Aim. The present study examined whether emotional exhaustion statistically accounts for part of the association between perceived work stress and psychological well-being in a sample of working adults.
Design and Sample. A cross-sectional online survey was administered to N = 109 working adults (Mage = 36.3 years, SD = 9.3; 53.2% female; 84.4% full-time). Measures comprised the Perceived Work Stress Scale (PWSS; α = .94), the Emotional Exhaustion Scale (EES; α = .94), and the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS; α = .92), all author-developed for this study.
Results. Perceived work stress was positively correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = .68, p < .001) and negatively correlated with psychological well-being (r = −.53, p < .001); emotional exhaustion was negatively correlated with well-being (r = −.55, p < .001). A bootstrapped indirect-effect analysis (PROCESS Model 4; Hayes, 2018; 5,000 resamples) yielded a significant indirect association of work stress with well-being through emotional exhaustion (β = −.23, 95% CI [−.39, −.10]), alongside a significant direct association (β = −.30, p = .006). The model accounted for 35% of the variance in psychological well-being.
Conclusion. Emotional exhaustion is associated with a substantial portion of the link between perceived work stress and reduced psychological well-being. Because the design is cross-sectional, the indirect effect is interpreted as consistent with — but not confirmatory of — the hypothesised causal pathway. The findings corroborate a well-established occupational-health mechanism and point to emotional exhaustion as a practically informative intervention target.
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