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Background and Purpose: Social workers play a critical role in helping clients deal with stress and trauma. The emotional impact on helping professionals of chronic vicarious exposure to these events is an ongoing focus of research (Salston & Figley, 2003; Bell, 2003; Jenkins & Baird, 2002). Many of these studies confirm that burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress often occur. Cunningham (2004) emphasizes the need to prepare social work students for work with trauma survivors and provides methods to reduce the affects of vicarious traumatization experienced by social work students exposed to trauma cases through reading assignments and classroom discussion. The authors of this study have further explored the psychological impact of secondary trauma on social work students. Data is presented from an initial pilot study which used the Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Subscales (Stamm, 2005) to investigate the psychological impact of the field experience on social work students.
Methods:The study was conducted over a three semesters with BSW and MSW field students in the Social Work Department at Texas A&M University, Commerce. The sample was comprised of 149 student with ages varying from 21 to 51. At the end of each semester in 2007 (spring, summer and fall), all field students were invited to participate in the study. Students who voluntarily participated signed a consent form and a code number was assigned to ensure confidentiality. Participants were asked to provide basic demographic information, including information about their field practicum setting. Each participant then completed the Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Subscales (PreQOL – CSF-R-III) (Stamm, 2005).
Results: The Professional Qualitiy of Life Scale consists of three distinct, but related subscales: Compassion Satisfaction (CS), Burnout (BO), and Compassion Fatigue (CF)/Secondary Trauma (ST). There are 10 items for each construct, with a composite score of 50 for each, based on a 5 point Likert scale. Students had a mean score of 40 on compassion satisfaction, which was higher than the instrument average score of 27. Students had a mean score of 27 on burnout, compared with 23 for the instrument average score. Students' scored the same as the instrument average score, 13 on the final subscale, compassion fatigue. There was a statistically significant difference between the BSW and MSW students on the subscales for fatigue (F+2.50, p+.034) and burnout (F=3.524, p+.005).
Implications: The results indicate that while social work students appear to be motivated and committed to the profession, they do experience burnout at an elevated level and are at risk for secondary trauma during their field experience. The authors suggest social work curriculum content that would prepare students for the impact of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue. The importance of debriefing and on going support by well trained field instructors during supervision time and by social work faculty in field seminars is critical in assisting students to learn how to deal with the impact of secondary trauma.