Development of a Self-Care Assessment for Psychologists.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on the importance of self-care for psychologists and other mental health professionals. With the growth of positive psychology and preventive medicine, self-care is an emerging topic, promulgated as a means of avoiding the adverse effects of stress and promoting professional functioning and well-being. However, the research on self-care is limited because of the lack of an empirically based, psychometrically sound measure of this construct. Thus, the purpose of this project was to develop a measure of professional self-care. Professional psychologists were the focus of study, with the goal being to develop a measure that can be used in this population and similar groups of professionals. Based on expert feedback and a preliminary study of 422 licensed psychologists in Illinois, a 5-factor, 21-item scale was created. Factor analysis identified the following self-care factors: Professional Support, Professional Development, Life Balance, Cognitive Awareness, and Daily Balance. Preliminary analyses provided initial support for the validity of the 5 factors. A follow-up study was conducted with a second sample of clinical psychologists. The 5-factor structure provided a good fit to the data with the second sample. Thus, based on factor analysis and validity data, a 5-factor, 21-item Professional Self-Care Scale was established for further study and use in future research. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dear Mental Health Practitioners, Take Care of Yourselves: a Literature Review on Self-Care

“…The current literature suggests that a proactive stance toward self-care can help reduce negative outcomes experienced by mental health practitioners (Goncher et al 2013), and improve the care of clients (Schomaker and Ricard 2015), both being ethical imperatives in the profession. The vast increase in published literature on self-care, and its inclusion in multiple codes of ethics demonstrates that a positive shift toward self-care has already begun, with, for example, two self-care scales being recently developed (Dorociak et al 2017a;Santana and Fouad 2017). Yet, more is needed in terms of the implementation of self-care 'on the ground'in clinical training programs and in the quality assurance processes of professional associations in the field of mental health.…”

“…Second, as self-care is a dynamic process and practices used by mental health practitioners will be adopted throughout the span of their practice (Dorociak et al 2017a), it may be helpful for professional organizations to provide information on empirically-supported strategies for self-care. For example, a guideline of areas in practitioners' personal and professional lives that need attention could be part of ethical practice and may help highlight gaps in self-care.…”

Self-care among healthcare social workers: The impact of COVID-19

“…To collect data about self-care, researchers utilized the Professional Self-Care Scale (PSCS; Dorociak et al, 2017). PSCS includes five domains and spans 21 items.…”

“…The PSCS scale has been shown to have acceptable psychometric properties (e.g., Dorociak et al, 2017) and have been used in several published studies among social workers (e.g., Miller & Grise-Owens, 2020b). Cronbach's alpha statistics for this study ranged from .81 to .87, well within acceptable range.…”

A theory‐based examination of self‐care behaviours among psychologists

“…Despite the growing literature on self‐care for psychologists where researchers have used different approaches to conceptualize self‐care for psychologists, there appears to be no standard definition for self‐care (Dorociak, Rupert, Bryant, & Zahniser, 2017; Malinowski, 2014; Norcross, 2000). Dorociak et al (2017) describe self‐care as a multidimensional, multifaceted process of undertaking intentional strategies with the goal of enhancing well‐being that has been conceptualized in different ways.…”