Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: Burnout has been widely researched in the helping professions because of its negative consequences for practitioners, organizations, and clients. Its relationships with personal and occupational risk factors, along with protective factors such as social support and coping strategies, have been extensively investigated in a piecemeal approach. Conceptually and empirically, it can be said that burnout is affected by all the above factors; however no prior study of social workers has attempted to examine the contributions of these factors in a single model. This study explores the relationships of these factors with burnout in a single model with a probability sample of practicing social workers, focusing on the influence of coping strategies.

Method: The data were collected using an anonymous mail survey of 1000 NASW members in North Carolina that resulted in a representative sample of 751 respondents. Burnout was measured with the emotional exhaustion subscale of the MBI, and independent variables were measured with items typically found in the literature. In a regression analysis, after controlling for demographics, personal variables (life satisfaction score and anxiety level), occupational factors (workload, proportion of stressful clients, hours of work weekly), social support at home and work, and a number of different coping strategies were entered in blocks to examine their influence on burnout.

Results: The results indicate that the overall model was significant (F_17,509 = 20.27, p< 0.01) and adjusted R-square value was .384. Individual traits such as life satisfaction (β = -.14, p< 0.01) and anxiety (β = .29, p< 0.01) were related to burnout. Workplace conditions, including dealing with large proportions of stressful clients (β = .23, p < 0.01) and hours of work weekly (β = .12, p< 0.01) were also influential in the model, although the time spent in doing paperwork (β = .06, p = .096) was not. The findings from the social support variables were mixed. Supportive supervision was significantly related to burnout (β = -.17, p< 0.01) while social support from coworkers and family were not. Individual coping strategies such as exercising, relaxation techniques, speaking with family and friends, going to church, and consulting colleagues did not emerge as significant influences on burnout. However it must be noted that only one coping strategy, talking to clergy (β = -.08, p< 0.05), emerged as a protective factor in the overall model.

Implications: By including potential risk and protective factors in the same model, this study provides important implications for intervention. This analysis supports previous findings in that workplace conditions influence burnout in practicing social workers. However, the findings refute the literature's typical suggestions to increase individual coping strategies or social support as the means of dealing with burnout. Workplace factors should be targeted for intervention, and placing the burden on individuals to cope personally with systemic workplace problems appears misguided, at best, according to these findings.