Job Stress Among Academic Health Center and Community Hospital Social Workers

Engaging Our Workforce: How Job Demands and Resources Contribute to Social Worker Burnout, Engagement and Intent to Leave

“…The authors concluded with a call for empirically sound research to determine to what extent social workers experience bumout and to identify factors associated with this phenomenon. This call is in line with a growing literature calling for greater emphasis on the problem and prevention of social worker stress and bumout (Cherin, 2000;Coyle et al, 2005;Gellis, 2001;Lloyd, King, Chenoweth, 2001;Nissly, Mor Barak, & Levin, 2005) There are two main reasons why it is important for social workers to actively engage in theory generation and development of interventions aimed at understanding and reducing bumout. The first is that social workers are considered to be an at-risk population for stress and bumout because their work is largely clientbased and involves complex social situations (Lloyd et al, 2002;Soderfeldt et al, 1995).…”

“…Social work's inquiry into bumout has largely been descriptive, but offers evidence that social workers are experiencing bumout at high rates. Social workers in child welfare report experiences of stress, bumout, and post-traumatic stress Regehr, Hemsworth, Leslie, Howe, & Chau, 2004); approximately a quarter o f health care social workers surveyed in 1979 and 1989 reported bumout (Siefert, Jayaratne, & Chess, 1991); over half of a sample of mental health social workers reported stress and bumout (Coyle, Edwards, Hannigan, Fothergill, & Bumard, 2005); a quarter of a sample of gerontological social workers reported high levels and 34% reported moderate levels of emotional exhaustion (Poulin & Walter, 1993); academic health center and community hospital social workers report high stress levels (Gellis, 2001); approximately a quarter of social work discharge planners reported job dissatisfaction (Kadushin & Kulys, 1995); and half of a sample o f social service workers reported bumout (Takeda, Yokoyama, Miyake, & Ohida, 2002).…”

“…This dissertation study was developed in response to two recommendations prevalent in literature: 1) a call for the development and testing of theories and models that explain worker stress, bumout and turnover (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005;Nissly et al, 2005;Cherin, 2000;Wright & Cropanzano, 1998) and 2) a call for the profession of social work to respond and attend to issues of stress, bumout and retention within the workforce (Cherin, 2000;Coyle, Edwards, Hannigan, Fothergill, & Bumard, 2005;Gellis, 2001;Siebert, 2004;Soderfeldt et al, 1995).…”

Does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain? A study of Australian social workers

“…In Australia, the larger systemic changes such as the separation of purchasers from the 92 P. Kalliath and T. Kalliath providers of services, privatization of public services, and new public management techniques that link funding to measurable outcomes have all influenced the ways in which social work is practiced (Healy & Meagher, 2004). Other organizational and clientassociated factors such as increased complexity of cases, staff shortages, lack of managerial support, lack of appropriate and timely supervision, exposure to client hostility, ambiguous or unrealistic client expectations, and working with emotionally sensitive cases such as child separation, incest, rape, drug addiction and terminal illness are all linked to work stress among social workers globally (Coffey, Dugdill, & Tattersall, 2004;Dollard, Winefield, & Winefield, 2003;Gellis, 2001). Whilst the social work literature has given considerable attention to client and organizational factors as significant contributors of stress, little recognition is given to work -family conflict as a potential contributor.…”

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers

“…Past research has shown that control over decisionmaking, job autonomy, job variety, job challenge, skill variety, supervision, role strain, role conflict, role ambiguity, job stress, and supportive supervision are all significant predictors of job satisfaction for social service workers (Gellis, 2001;Glisson and Durick, 1988;Itzhaky and Aviad-Hiebloom, 1998;Jayaratne and Chess, 1984;Poulin, 1994Poulin, , 1995.…”