Associations of Burnout, Secondary Traumatic Stress and Individual Differences among Correctional Psychologists

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine associations between secondary traumatic stress (ST), job burnout (BO) and several psychological variables such as world assumptions and locus of control in correctional psychologists. Methods:This study utilized information provided by 87 currently prac¬ticing correctional mental health providers (psychologists) in the correctional settings across Russia in St.-Petersburg, Belgorod, Vladimir, Kaluga, Ryazan, etc. The sample included 51 men, 36 women. The mean age of participants was 34.9±6.9 (ranging from 25 to 48 years). Participants reported working a mean of 6.23±3.5 years (ranging from 3 months to 15 years) in a correc¬tional setting. Subjects were assessed with Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS), Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS), World Assumption Scale (WAS) and Locus of Control (LC) Scale. Three sets of statistical analysis were provided: ANOVAs between-group comparisons with STS and BO as factors and Spearman correlation analyses. Results:The results of our study reveal that burnout and secondary traumatic stress in correctional psychologists are signifi cantly positively related and thus may be exacerbated by each other. BO is signifi cantly negatively associated with WAS benevolence scale and the WAS self worth scale and STS is signifi cantly negatively associated with WAS benevolence scale and the WAS meaningfulness scale. However, LC and its components are negatively associated with BO, but not with STS. Conclusion:The main future direction of our research is to construct nonlinear model of burnout with STS, WA and LC components as predictors, identify its parameters and make its validation.

Determinants of secondary traumatic stress in midwives: The role of workplace related factors

“…Shoji et al conducted a cross-sectional longitudinal study in two groups of healthcare workers and found that burnout measured at the beginning of the study led to STS six months later, but STS for the rst time did not lead to burnout in the next six months [57]. Other studies have shown a relationship between job burnout and STS in nurses and therapists of mental disorders [24,25].…”

“…Studies show that various individual and organizational factors can play a crucial role in the incidence of STS, such as gender, level of education, length of professional life, long working hours, empathy with patients, job satisfaction, and burnout [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Another factor related to the work environment is the sense of belonging to the clinical environment, which is the feeling of being important to others and is formed in response to how well the individual's values align with those of the professional group [28].…”

Psychologists return to the first question of Western philosophy.

“…Further, in addition to Just world belief, several world belief or related literatures arose independently, including on social axioms in cross-cultural psychology (Leung et al, 2002), “negative worldview” in developmental psychology (Rohner, 2004), belief in dangerous and competitive social worlds in political psychology (Perry et al, 2013), and “world assumptions” in trauma therapy research (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). Considerable cross-cultural work suggested a common capacity for stable world beliefs independent of personal life history and highly correlated to theoretically relevant behaviors and well-being outcomes (Bègue & Bastounis, 2003; Chen et al, 2016; Feist et al, 1995; Kaler et al, 2008; Leung et al, 2002; Malkina-Pykh, 2017; Perry et al, 2013; Prager & Solomon, 1995; Rohner, 2004; Sibley et al, 2007; Solomon et al, 1997). Belief in a dangerous social world, for example, was tied to increased threat perception in ambiguous situations, including mistakenly shooting people in simulations (Miller et al, 2012; Schaller et al, 2003).…”

The Impact of Caseload and Tenure on the Development of Vicarious Trauma in Australian Corrective Services Employees

“…For this reason, research has found that corrective services staff are at an elevated risk of stress and burnout (Lambert, et al, 2015), and secondary traumatic stress (Johnson, 2016). This direct exposure to trauma has also been shown to contribute to numerous deleterious personal and organisational consequences (Finn, 1998;Johnson, 2016;Thomas, 2012;Malkina-Pykh, 2017).…”

“…Volker and Galbraith (2018) reveal that there is often a conflict that arises between therapeutic values and punitive values within therapists working with offenders. Often, therapists are required to operate from positions of empathy and positive regard, whilst managing conflicting emotions of anger, disgust, and hatred, all while functioning within the socio-cultural context of the correctional institution (Polson & McCullom, 1995;Malkina-Pykh, 2017). Correctional therapists, along with other non-custodial roles, are more regularly required to examine narratives of offenders' crimes, and this exposure to graphic accounts of human cruelty, along with traumatic depictions in therapy, can produce a unique experience and sequelae than that experienced by other correctional staff working with offender populations (McCann & Pearlman, 1990).…”