Individual and Organizational Correlates of Secondary Traumatic Stress Among MSW Students

Background/Purpose: Secondary traumatic stress (STS), a negative feeling driven by fear and work-related trauma (Stamm, 2010), has been examined in social work practitioners, but little is known about it in MSW students. For practitioners, it can interfere with their efficacy and productivity, and for students it can hamper competency development. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between individual, placement, and supervision characteristics with STS among a small group of MSW students who are in advanced clinical field placements where exposure to traumatic stress is a particular concern. 

Methods: This study was based on a voluntary sample of 24 MSW students from a northeastern state. The majority of students were female (79.2%), White (87.5%), and 25 years or younger (54.2%). They were recruited via email through their involvement in a student-training project. Measures included the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale (α = 0.75), the Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration (IIC) (Total scale α = 0.93, Interdependence subscale α = 0.77, Newly created professional activities subscale α = 0.73, Flexibility subscale α = 0.70, Collective ownership of goals subscale α = 0.79, Reflection on process subscale α = 0.79) and field stressor and satisfaction variables. Data was collected from participants via an online survey. Ordinary least squares regression was used to test significance of association between correlates and STS. 

Results: Overall, students reported low frequencies of STS. STS was statistically significantly (p<.05) associated with students’ years of paid human service experience prior to their field placement and the IIC collective ownership of goals subscale.  Students with one or more years of prior paid human service experience reported less frequent STS. Students who perceived the professionals at their field placements shared responsibility for the services the agency provided also reported less STS. There were no statistically significant associations between STS and field placement stress factors such as role ambiguity or overload, whether the student’s field instructor was a direct practitioner rather than a supervisor or administrator, or any of the other IIC subscales. 

Conclusions and Implications: These results suggest that a student’s prior human service experience and their perceptions of staff and client participation in service planning in their field placement are connected to their experience of STS. Prior experience in human service settings could contribute to increased efficacy in coping with work-related fear and trauma. Participatory field placement settings could also increase students’ emotional security, thus insulating them from STS. This study implies, from the perspective of student quality of life, that prior human service experience would be beneficial to take into account as part of MSW program admission evaluations. MSW programs should help raise awareness at field sites of the connection between the organizational climate and worker, including student, well-being. To contribute to organizational theory, future research could replicate this study with agency clinicians where caseloads expose them to different frequencies and intensities of client trauma to understand what might increase or decrease STS.