RESUMO
BACKGROUND: This research focuses on problems relating to creativity and problem-solving capacity faced by a specific group of professionals, as they relate to worker burnout, which is prevalent in a large number of work environments. OBJECTIVES: Our hypothesis was that creative people who follow method and order are less likely to suffer from burnout. Our objective was to demonstrate that health professionals working in surgery who are creative, methodical, and orderly have lower levels of burnout compared to others. DESIGN: A correlational, analytical, and cross-sectional study with 70 health professionals working in surgery. METHODS: A random sample of health professionals who worked in surgery at the Hospital Universitario de La Princesa in Madrid, Spain from 2011 to 2014 were studied. The variables considered in the study were: gender, age, profession, creativity score, method and order score, and burnout score. Measurement tools were CREA: creative intelligence (Corbalán & Martinez, 2003), MO2: method and order (Seisdedos, 1994), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a test of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1981), all of which were validated for the Spanish population. RESULTS: Our data indicate that a worker's age influences his/her capacity to work with method and order, and that workers with emotional exhaustion (a basic feature of burnout) have lower scores in method and order. Greater emotional exhaustion and greater depersonalization were related to lower personal accomplishment and greater burnout. CONCLUSION: people who work with method and order are less likely to suffer from burnout. We did not find a direct relationship between creativity and method and order or between creativity and burnout.