The Psychological Impact of Violence on Staff Working with Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Background Staff in intellectual disability services can experience high levels of violence, which may lead to burnout. Staff burnout may result in poorer quality services. Previous research has suggested that factors such as fear of violence, self-efficacy and staff support moderate the impact of violence on burnout. Aims The research explores the relationship between levels of violence, with fear of violence, self-efficacy, staff support and burnout. Method A survey exploring levels of violence, fear of violence, burnout, self-efficacy and staff support was completed by 44 care staff in a medium-secure setting with a high incidence of violence, and 38 care staff in community settings with a low incidence of violence. Results Medium-secure staff reported significantly lower fear of violence and higher self-efficacy compared with community staff. Increased burnout significantly correlated with increased perceived exposure to physical violence and reduced staff support. Self-efficacy demonstrated a significant moderator relationship with levels of violence and burnout. Higher threats of violence significantly correlated with lower fear of violence. Conclusion Services which are organized to manage violence may be better placed to support staff experiencing violence. Fear of violence may decrease with exposure to violence, perhaps due to increased self-efficacy. Training and support for staff may increase self-efficacy, thus reducing burnout. Longitudinal research is needed to increase understanding of the relationship between violence and burnout.

The relationship between challenging behaviour, burnout and cognitive variables in staff working with people who have intellectual disabilities

“…The figure also shows the association between attributions and negative emotions as shown for specific attributions of controllability (Dagnan & Weston, 2006;Wanless & Jahoda, 2006) and internality (Dagnan & Cairns, 2005;Wanless & Jahoda, 2006). Although attributions and negative emotions appear to play a major role, other staff characteristics have been shown to be important, including coping resources (Mitchell & Hastings, 2001;Raczka, 2005;Robertson et al 2005;Whittington & Burns, 2005); more recently personality, as introduced by the quantitative studies (Chung & Harding, 2009;Lundström, Graneheim, Eisemann, Richter & Åström, 2007); and self-efficacy (Howard, Rose & Levenson, 2009). With regards to selfefficacy, the qualitative studies appear to allude to this construct with themes of powerlessness (Lundström, Åström & Graneheim, 2007), inadequacy (Fish, 2000) and feeling unable to manage challenging behaviour (Dagnan, 2007).…”

“…The study by Howard, Rose and Levenson (2009) suggests that a feeling of being able to manage challenging behaviour has more of an influence on burnout than exposure to challenging behaviour. Therefore it could be suggested that it is not the level of challenging behaviour which is stressful, but the way in which it is perceived.…”

“…The link between challenging behaviour and stress in the quantitative studies appears mixed. Three studies found a relationship between levels of challenging behaviour and burnout (Chung & Harding, 2009;Donaldson, 2002;Howard, Rose & Levenson, 2009) while others found no difference between groups for burnout (Lundström, Graneheim, Eisemann, Richter & Åström, 2007;Rose & Rose, 2005) or well-being (Robertson et al, 2005), and some which had initially found correlational relationships then found no difference when either comparing to a non-challenging behaviour group (Donaldson, 2002), or splitting the group into high and low challenging behaviour (Howard, Rose & Levenson, 2009). Some of these studies also used measures of emotional reactions to challenging behaviour and found evidence for negative emotions being associated with higher levels of burnout (Mitchell & Hastings, 2001;Rose, Horne, Rose & Hastings, 2004).…”

“…Howard, Rose and Levenson (2009) examined two groups; 44 staff from a medium secure setting with high levels of violence and 38 staff from a community setting with lower levels of violence. Overall violence was associated with higher emotional exhaustion as measured by the MBI (Maslach & Jackson, 1993).…”

High levels of burnout among early-career board-certified behavior analysts with low collegial support in the work environment

“…Interaction with clients may also be an additional source of stress. For example, employees who work with clients who engage in aggressive behaviors present a higher rate of burnout (Howard, Rose, & Levenson, 2009;Rose, Mills, Silva, & Thompson, 2013). Maslach et al (2001) found that younger employees tend to experience burnout more often than older employees.…”