What Protects Youth Residential Caregivers from Burning Out? A Longitudinal Analysis of Individual Resilience

Abstract

Background: Professional caregivers are exposed to multiple stressors and have high burnout rates; however, not all individuals are equally susceptible. We investigated the association between resilience and burnout in a Swiss population of professional caregivers working in youth residential care. Methods: Using a prospective longitudinal study design, participants (n = 159; 57.9% women) reported on burnout symptoms and sense of coherence (SOC), self-efficacy and self-care at four annual sampling points. The associations of individual resilience measures and sociodemographic variables, work-related and personal stressors, and burnout symptoms were assessed. Cox proportional hazards regressions were calculated to compute hazard ratios over the course of three years. Results: Higher SOC, self-efficacy and self-care were related to lower burnout symptoms in work-related and personal domains. Higher SOC and self-efficacy were reported by older caregivers and by those with children. All three resilience measures were highly correlated. A combined model analysis weakened the protective effect of self-efficacy, leaving only SOC and self-care negatively associated with burnout. Conclusion: This longitudinal analysis suggests that SOC and self-caring behaviour in particular protect against burnout. Our findings could have implications for promoting self-care practices, as well as cultivating a meaningful, comprehensible and manageable professional climate in all facets of institutional care.

Self-Oriented Empathy and Compassion Fatigue: The Serial Mediation of Dispositional Mindfulness and Counselor’s Self-Efficacy

“…In line with previous studies, we found that self-oriented empathy could negatively predict dispositional mindfulness ( Baer, 2004 ; Dekeyser et al, 2008 ; Fuochi and Voci, 2020 ) and context-specific self-efficacy ( Aparicio-Flores et al, 2020 ). We also found that low levels of mindfulness and context-specific self-efficacy were associated with a high level of CF, which is consistent with previous studies ( Olson et al, 2015 ; Shoji et al, 2015 ; Brown et al, 2017 ; Kind et al, 2020 ). Moreover, our results supported the hypotheses that self-oriented empathy would be associated with CF via dispositional mindfulness and counselor’s self-efficacy, respectively, which suggests that self-oriented empathy could affect CF partially through awareness in the present and beliefs on the professional ability.…”

Data_Sheet_1.docx

“…These cross-sectional correlational findings might be a first indicator of this possible health promoting effect and should be further investigated in larger longitudinal interventional studies. In a recent longitudinal study, we were able to demonstrate that SoC and self-caring behavior in youth residential caregivers protect against burnout (40). The current findings extend the protective role of resilience onto psychophysiological alterations in hair samples of caregivers.…”

The Stress of Caring—Resilience and HPA-Axis Activity in Hair Samples of Youth Residential Caregivers

“…SoC and self-efficacy are well and broadly studied concept, whereas for self-care to date there is no clear and homogenous construct defined in the literature and it is very heterogeneously assessed. These concepts were found to be moderately correlated with one another ( 40 ), which complicates individual interpretations if combined in the same model, therefore we decided to analyze them separately.…”

“…GRR can include characteristics of an individual, a group or an environment (genetic, physical, and psychosocial), which might ease effective tension management (38). Numerous studies have shown SoC to be positively related to health-behaviors and mental health and negatively toward burnout, depression, anxiety and PTSD symptoms in caregivers and medical staff (1,26,(39)(40)(41). Others showed SoC to be an important moderator and mediator between chronic stressors, early adversity and later health outcomes (42).…”

“…Self-care contains physical factors (e.g., participating in sports, sleeping enough, balancing nutrition), psychological factors (e.g., feeling supported, upholding values, self-reflection) and work-related factors (e.g., taking breaks, successfully transitioning from work to private life, sharing responsibilities). Self-care was previously shown to be related to lower levels of burnout and lower levels of compassion fatigue ( 25 , 26 , 40 , 48 ).…”