The cost of caring: secondary traumatic stress and burnout among lay trauma counsellors in the Western Cape Province

Abstract

The psychological and emotional risks associated with providing care to traumatized populations have been largely overlooked in the literature on non-professional trauma counselling in South Africa. Non-professional or lay trauma counsellors are frontline service providers and typically the first point of contact for people in community contexts who have experienced traumatic events. The main aim of this study was to investigate the professional quality of life including compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout of a sample ( N = 146) of lay trauma counsellors in the Western Cape Province. Demographic factors including age and gender were found to be significant. Older age was associated with compassion satisfaction while younger age predicted burnout. Male lay trauma counsellors were more likely to report high burnout and high secondary traumatic stress compared with their female counterparts. The study underscores the need for organizations to incorporate prevention and intervention approaches to mitigate the negative psychological impact of working with trauma. Male lay trauma counsellors and younger counsellors may particularly benefit from interventions that encourage debriefing.

Role of Psychosocial Factors In Vicarious Traumatization: A Comparative Study

“…A study showed high prevalence of vicarious traumatization among social workers after 20 months of terrorist attack on World Trade Centre 5 . Similar results were found for humanitarian aid workers in India and 8% of them met the criteria of PTSD 6 . Many other studies have been carried out with therapists, counselors, social workers and nurses with similar findings 7 .…”

Exploring effort–reward imbalance and professional quality of life among health workers in Cape Town, South Africa: a mixed-methods study

“…For each subscale, a score above 42 is considered high, 23–41 average, and 22 or less is considered low [ 46 ]. The ProQOL scale has been widely used, including in multiple studies in healthcare settings in South Africa [ 49 – 52 ].…”

Caring does not always cost: The role of fortitude in the association between personal trauma exposure and professional quality of life among lay trauma counselors.

“…The prevalence of mental health disorders in the country is higher compared with other African countries (Benjet et al, 2016; Padmanabhanunni, 2018). This burden of mental illness is further aggravated by a low ratio of professional mental health care providers to the population (e.g., 2.5 psychologists per 100 000 of the population) and limited access to psychological services particularly in low-income communities (Padmanabhanunni, 2019). To address the demand for counseling services and fill an essential gap in the provision of psychological care to vulnerable populations, the services provided by nonprofessional or lay counselors have been utilized for several decades in South Africa.…”