Resilience and professional quality of life in staff working with people with intellectual disabilities and offending behavior in community based and institutional settings

Abstract

Staff in forensic services for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are expected to deal with a wide range of emotional challenges when providing care. The potential impact of this demanding work has not been systematically explored previously. This article explores the professional quality of life (QoL) and the resilience (hardiness) of the staff in this setting. The Professional QoL questionnaire and the Disposional Resilience Scale were completed by staff (n=85, 80% response rate) in the Norwegian forensic service for ID offenders. Responses from staff working in institutional settings were compared to those from staff in local community services. Staff in the local community services had higher resilience scores compared to the staff in the institutional setting, (t=2.19; P<0.05). However in the other QoL and resilience domains there were no differences between the staff in the two settings. The greater sense of resilient control among community staff may be a function of both the number of service users they work with and the institutional demands they face. Even though these participants worked with relatively high risk clients, they did not report significantly impaired quality of life compared to other occupations.

Investigating professional quality of life in nursing staff working in Adolescent Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs)

“…Although the levels of compassion satisfaction in the adolescent PICU context were higher than expected when compared to adult secure mental health inpatient settings, they are in keeping with observations that compassion satisfaction tends to be highest in populations who are working with children and young people (Stamm, 2010). Studies investigating quality of life in mental health nurses working in secure adult settings have hypothesised that the technical and procedural approach to institutional care is responsible to creating emotional distance in the nurse patient relationship, which may serve to reduce compassion satisfaction but also protect nurses from burn out and secondary traumatic stress symptoms (Sondenaa et al, 2013;Lauvrud et al, 2009). In contrast, the higher level of dependency and attachment needs in young people have been noted as requiring a much closer emotional relationship between children and inpatient mental health nurses (Rasmussen, Henderson and Muir-Cochrane, 2012).…”

“…The environment and the high levels of violence and aggression within it are often managed through relatively high nursing staff levels, of which the dominant work force is unqualified health care support workers. The care of service users who present with high levels of violence is known to be complex, often provoking difficult feelings and contributing to negative work experience (Sondenaa et al, 2013).…”

“…Burnout is a psychological syndrome, characterised by exhaustion, frustration, anger and depression associated with professional life (Stamm, 2010) that occurs in response to chronic uncontrollable work demands when providing a service (Maslach et al, 2001). It is most common in workers who have to give something of themselves emotionally (Sondenaa et al, 2013).…”

Promoting satisfaction and reducing fatigue: Understanding the impact of trauma‐informed organizational culture on psychological wellness among Direct Service Providers

“…Professional quality of life has been explored extensively across the helping professions; however, few studies have been conducted in the disability field (Brooker et al, ; Søndenaa, Lauvrud, Sandvik, Nonstad, & Whittington, ; Søndenaa, Whittington, Lauvrud, & Nonstad, ; Stamm, ). Further, the generalization of results from these studies is limited by a lack of specificity regarding type of disability and potential professional and cultural differences (Brooker et al, ; Søndenaa et al, , ).…”

“…Professional quality of life has been explored extensively across the helping professions; however, few studies have been conducted in the disability field (Brooker et al, ; Søndenaa, Lauvrud, Sandvik, Nonstad, & Whittington, ; Søndenaa, Whittington, Lauvrud, & Nonstad, ; Stamm, ). Further, the generalization of results from these studies is limited by a lack of specificity regarding type of disability and potential professional and cultural differences (Brooker et al, ; Søndenaa et al, , ). Nonetheless, professional quality of life has utility in IDD services as it more fully considers the scope of the DSP experiences and complements foci of recent IDD literature, such as a need for greater emphasis on positive aspects of direct support work (Lunsky, Hastings, Hensel, Arenovich, & Dewa, ), and increased attention to trauma (Hensel, Lunsky, & Dewa, ; Keesler, ; Wigham & Emerson, ].…”