Physical activity as a moderator of a relationship between work-related hazards and professional burnout of Polish academics

Empirical papers on association between physical activity (PA) and professional burnout (PB) and work-related hazards (WRH) in a population of different working adults are still limited. The aim of this chapter is to characterize the level of habitual physical activity of academics working at higher education institutions of Poland, with particular reference to leisure-time physical activity (LPA). Moreover, the chapter also tries to answer a question whether LPA is an important moderating variable of the relationship between work-related hazards and professional burnout. A quantitative research was carried out from September till December 2017 [N = 340]. The online questionnaire consisted of three research tools: the Psychosocial Risk Scale (SRP), the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), and the International Physical Activity Questionnaires (IPAQ), the long form with demographic characteristics. In the chapter, different statistic tests (the independent-samples t-test, one way-ANOVA, the Mann–Whitney U-test, and Kruskal–Wallis test) and descriptive statistics were included. More than 60% of respondents were classified to the high level of PA according to IPAQ. LPA was declared by 41.8% of academics (vigorous—35.5%, moderate—29.7%, walking—64.5%). To analyze the significance of leisure-time physical activity as a variable moderating the hazards/professional burnout relationship, regression analysis with interaction was conducted. Only in the case of one model referring to the perceived job context-related hazards/exhaustion relationship, statistically significant moderating effect of LTA was found.