Self‐care agency and self‐care practice in youth workers reduces burnout risk and improves compassion satisfaction

Abstract

Introduction and Aims. Youth work specialises in helping vulnerable young people face life challenges during critical stages of their development. It is a complex and demanding role and factors influencing occupational stress in youth workers are rarely investigated. This study examined whether youth alcohol and other drug workers with greater compassion satisfaction, self-care practice and self-care agency experienced different rates of occupational stress including burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Design and Methods. A convenience sample of 258 Australian youth alcohol and other drug workers completed an online questionnaire battery. A four-stage data analysis was conducted utilising multivariate analysis of variance, bivariate correlations, linear multiple regression models and mediation modelling. Results. Burnout and secondary traumatic stress exhibited moderate negative correlations with compassion satisfaction, self-care practice and the different forms of self-care agency. Further, a decrease in lacking power for self-care, a form of self-care agency, was the strongest contributor to both burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Support was found for a mediation pathway whereby self-care agency led to greater self-care practice, which in turn increased compassion satisfaction, lowering burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Discussion and Conclusions. The findings suggest that it would be beneficial for self-care agency to be a key focus of youth worker training and professional development programs.

The Appraisal of Self-Care Agency Scale-Revised (ASAS-R): Reliability and Validity among Portuguese Medical Students

“…On the other hand, Factor III “lacking power for self-care” showed a negative correlation with all 3 comparative scales’ total scores. This association corroborates the results reported in previous studies, suggesting that poor self-care agency or “lacking power for self-care agency” are associated with risk for mental illness [ 45 , 46 ] and low happiness and life satisfaction [ 32 ].…”

“…This finding suggests that greater ability for self-care is associated with greater satisfaction with life, perception of happiness, and mental health, as reported by Damasio et al [ 32 ]. In fact, several studies support the hypothesis that self-care agency has an important role in both physical and mental health [ 32 , 35 , 45 , 46 ]. Such can be explained by the fact that individuals with greater self-care agency are more likely to care for themselves, perform self-care actions, and adopt healthy behaviors [ 30 ], that positively affect their physical and mental health.…”

“…It is expected that the scores of Factors I—having the capacity for self-care and II—developing the capacity for self-care have a positive correlation coefficient with the scores of the SHS), SWLS and the MHI. On the other hand, Factor III—Inability to self-care is expected to have a negative correlation coefficient with the scores of the 3 scales mentioned above [ 32 , 35 , 44 , 45 , 46 ].…”