Future role aspirations, achievement motivations and perceptions of personal help-seeking among humanitarian aid trainees

Abstract

Humanitarian aid workers experience adverse mental health effects from their work at higher rates than the military, police and other emergency service personnel. Whilst there is considerable literature investigating risk and resilience factors for workers within this field, little is known about the status of such factors among individuals prior to their joining the profession. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten commencing undergraduates of a Bachelor of Humanitarian and Development Studies course to explore their aspirations and resilience factors regarding future work. Thematic analysis identified that whilst there was a high level of reported altruism among trainees, these perceptions appeared to constrain individual use of social support networks and help-seeking behaviours. Education and training appeared to shift future work preferences from humanitarian relief work towards development-related roles. The findings suggest that humanitarian aid trainees exhibit known risk and resilience factors before they enter the profession, whilst highlighting practice expectations and personal support perceptions that are amenable to positive change through training.

Thematic analysis of aid workers’ stressors and coping strategies: work, psychological, lifestyle and social dimensions

“…This reflects past research which indicates that social support is associated with lower levels of depression, psychological distress and burnout (Lopes Cardozo et al 2012). Skeoch et al (2017), this issue) demonstrated that trainee humanitarians identified future colleagues as their most important source of support as opposed to family and friends. Building on this work, results from the present study suggest that aid workers who are currently practising rely more heavily on family and friends, and some even warn against seeking support from colleagues.…”

Barriers to accessing psychosocial support for humanitarian aid workers: a mixed methods inquiry

“…Self and social stigma are likely to be highly related to why aid workers will not access the psychosocial support that is available, alongside fear of job insecurity owing to presenting oneself as incompetent or incapable (Olenick, 2011). Skeoch, Stevens, and Taylor (2017) found that humanitarian trainees believed that help‐seeking was a good practice, but mainly when referring to others, not themselves. Low rates of help‐seeking behaviour were reported, and self‐reliance was more typically mentioned as a coping mechanism, as a result of not wanting to burden others, and believing that their problems were not ‘big enough’ to warrant the seeking of support.…”

Help-seeking attitudes and behaviours among humanitarian aid workers

“…Help-seeking has been shown to support occupational mental health, including within military services, but there has been little examination of its use among humanitarian workers, a similarly high-exposure cohort. While Young et al (2018) found aid workers rated available social connections as a primary element of effective coping, more information is needed about their perceptions and use of personal help-seeking in the context of high work-related stress, and the factors that promote or hinder its use as a coping strategy (Skeoch et al 2017). Given the limited available data, this study used an exploratory, qualitative approach to examine these issues among professional humanitarian workers.…”

“…A review of the mental health status of humanitarian workers (Connorton et al 2012) found they experience higher rates of anxiety, depression and trauma symptoms than the general population. Prevalence indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within this population range from 8 to 43% and are higher than those observed among military and police personnel (Rose et al 2002;Defence Health 2016;Skeoch et al 2017). While a range of field-based stressors and critical incidents are associated with these outcomes (Nolty et al 2018), a systematic review by Brooks et al (2015) highlights that organisational stressors (e.g.…”