Predictors of burnout and health status in Samaritans’ listening volunteers

Abstract

Samaritan listening volunteers provide emotional support to people in distress or suicidal. Samaritans' has high volunteer turnover, which may be due to burnout. This study evaluated the role of demographic and psychosocial factors in predicting Samaritans listening volunteers' burnout and health status. Samaritans' listening volunteers (n = 216) from seven branches across UK completed an online survey to assess their levels of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, personal accomplishment), subjective health status, coping, empathy and social support. Overall, listeners showed low levels of burnout and good health. Regression analysis revealed that higher emotional exhaustion was predicted by younger age and avoidant coping style; higher depersonalisation was predicted by lower empathy fantasy and higher avoidant coping style; lower personal accomplishment scores were predicted by higher empathy personal distress and worse health status was predicted by more hours per week spent on listening duties, lower social support and higher avoidant coping style. Overall, different factors influenced different facets of burnout. However, higher use of avoidant coping style consistently predicted higher burnout and worse health status, suggesting avoidant coping is an important target for intervention.

Impact of Crisis Line Volunteering on Mental Wellbeing and the Associated Factors: A Systematic Review

“…Only thirteen studies, published between 1973 and 2018, were included in the current review: eight quantitative surveys [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] and five qualitative studies (observation, participation, document study, and interviews) [35][36][37][38][39]. No clinical trials or longitudinal studies were found.…”

“…The quality of the studies varied widely. Only four of the eight surveys used validated instruments to assess mental wellbeing or the factors influencing mental wellbeing [28,30,33,34]. The other four surveys used a single item to measure subjective mental wellbeing [27,29,31,32].…”

“…Ten studies investigated potentially negative effects on mental wellbeing of volunteering at the crisis line [27,28,[30][31][32][33][34]36,38,39], but the outcome measures differed widely. McClure et al [31] focused on psychiatric diagnosis, and found that 22% of the telephone crisis support workers met criteria for any disorder.…”

“…McClure et al [31] focused on psychiatric diagnosis, and found that 22% of the telephone crisis support workers met criteria for any disorder. Two studies [27,34] measured symptoms of burnout. Cyr and Dowrick [27] found that more than half (54%) of the volunteers in their sample ever felt burned out while working at the crisis line.…”

“…Cyr and Dowrick [27] found that more than half (54%) of the volunteers in their sample ever felt burned out while working at the crisis line. Roche and Ogden [34] measured three stages of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment). A minority of the volunteers scored moderate or high on emotional exhaustion (6%); and depersonalization (15%); half of the volunteers (50%) scored low or moderate on personal accomplishment (ability to use skills).…”