Loneliness, Marital Adjustment and Burnout in Pastoral and Lay Persons

The present study assessed the quality of life for pastors and pastors’ wives by comparing the quality of life they reported with that reported by non-pastoral males and females within the same denomination. Loneliness, marital adjustment and vocational burnout were used as the indices of the quality of life as measured by the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Responses from 189 subjects indicated that the pastors and the pastors’ wives experience significantly more loneliness and diminished marital adjustment in comparison with males and females in non-pastoral roles. Burnout was indicated by higher experienced levels of emotional exhaustion and involvement for pastors and pastors’ wives than non-pastoral husbands and wives. This provides some empirical support to the hypothesis that pastors and pastors’ wives experience a diminished quality of life compared to other persons in the church.