The Relationship between Existential Fulfilment and Job Burnout among Kenya universities’ professional Counsellors

This article establishes the relationship between existential fulfillment and job burnout among Kenya universities professional counsellors. This has significant implications for psychological health provision in other sectors, since universities play significant role in capacity building in mental health provision profession through counselling, training, consultancy and supervision of counsellors and trainees. Studying the psychological wellness of counsellors in higher learning could therefore strengthen the endeavours aimed at combating psychological job ill-health in other settings. The study was descriptive and utilized cross-sectional survey design that targeted population of 193 professional counsellors in 75 private and public universities in Kenya. Saturated sampling technique was used to conduct a census of the respondents. Data was obtained using the Existential Fulfilment Scale (EFS) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-HSS). Data collected was quantitative and descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used in the analysis. All posited hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant level and analysis done with aid of SPSS-22. The response rate was 180 (94%). Existential fulfilmentlevel was moderate (EFS = 2.57; SD = 1.08); job burnout level was moderate (MBI = 2.2; SD = 1.77). Existential fulfilment was negatively correlated to job burnout (r=-0.084(p = 0.26 > 0.05). Based on these findings, it was recommended that Human Resource Departments in higher learning should strengthen staff psychological support programmes to militate against job burnout. These findings have significant implications for workplace psychological health and functioning.