Emotional demands, compassion and mental health in social workers.
Compassion
emotional demands
mental health
self-compassion
social work
Journal
Occupational medicine (Oxford, England)
ISSN: 1471-8405
Titre abrégé: Occup Med (Lond)
Pays: England
ID NLM: 9205857
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
20 Apr 2020
20 Apr 2020
Historique:
pubmed:
1
2
2020
medline:
27
1
2021
entrez:
1
2
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Compassion, described as the act of providing care based on empathy, dignity and respect, is intrinsic to effective health and social care. Although delivering compassionate care has wide-ranging benefits for service users, more insight is needed into its effects on health and social care professionals. The emotional demands of 'helping' work can engender compassion fatigue that may impair well-being, whereas compassion satisfaction and feelings of compassion towards the self could be protective. To examine the effects (direct and indirect) of compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and self-compassion on mental health in a cohort of social workers. We used validated scales to measure emotional demands, compassion satisfaction and fatigue, and self-compassion and the General Health Questionnaire-12 to assess mental health. We tested the main and moderating effects of emotional demands and the three facets of compassion using hierarchical regression analysis. The study sample comprised 306 social workers (79% female). Participants who reported higher levels of compassion satisfaction and self-compassion tended to report better mental health, whereas compassion fatigue was a significant risk factor for well-being. The models explained 44-53% of the variance in mental health symptoms. We found some evidence that compassion satisfaction and self-compassion buffer the negative effects of emotional demand on mental health, contributing 2 and 3%, respectively, to the incremental variance. Our findings suggest that evidence-based interventions are needed to reduce compassion fatigue and enhance compassion satisfaction and self-compassion in social care work. We consider ways to accomplish this using targeted interventions.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
Compassion, described as the act of providing care based on empathy, dignity and respect, is intrinsic to effective health and social care. Although delivering compassionate care has wide-ranging benefits for service users, more insight is needed into its effects on health and social care professionals. The emotional demands of 'helping' work can engender compassion fatigue that may impair well-being, whereas compassion satisfaction and feelings of compassion towards the self could be protective.
AIMS
OBJECTIVE
To examine the effects (direct and indirect) of compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and self-compassion on mental health in a cohort of social workers.
METHODS
METHODS
We used validated scales to measure emotional demands, compassion satisfaction and fatigue, and self-compassion and the General Health Questionnaire-12 to assess mental health. We tested the main and moderating effects of emotional demands and the three facets of compassion using hierarchical regression analysis.
RESULTS
RESULTS
The study sample comprised 306 social workers (79% female). Participants who reported higher levels of compassion satisfaction and self-compassion tended to report better mental health, whereas compassion fatigue was a significant risk factor for well-being. The models explained 44-53% of the variance in mental health symptoms. We found some evidence that compassion satisfaction and self-compassion buffer the negative effects of emotional demand on mental health, contributing 2 and 3%, respectively, to the incremental variance.
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that evidence-based interventions are needed to reduce compassion fatigue and enhance compassion satisfaction and self-compassion in social care work. We consider ways to accomplish this using targeted interventions.
Identifiants
pubmed: 32003424
pii: 5718407
doi: 10.1093/occmed/kqz144
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
89-94Informations de copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.