Examining the Relationship between Workplace Safety and Professional Burnout among U.S. Social Workers

Abstract

Purpose Social workers are at risk of experiencing burnout, which is associated with numerous negative outcomes for professionals, agencies, and their clients. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between professional burnout and workplace conditions, with a particular focus on incidents of client violence.Method Data were from the 2015–2016 Social Work Safety Survey (SWSS) (N = 141). A multiple linear regression model was created to examine the effect of various workplace conditions on feelings of burnout, including experiencing incidents of client violence, workplace setting, average hours worked, length of time at current job, working primarily with clients who had experienced trauma, satisfaction with supervision, and having participated in a safety training.Results Feelings of burnout significantly increased as number of incidents of client violence and/or threats of client violence increased (B = 0.14). Additionally, the greater the average hours worked per week (B = .02) and working in private clinical practice (B = 0.63) significantly increased burnout scores. Length of time at current job was inversely predictive of feelings of burnout (B = −0.03).Discussion The findings from this study have significant implications for social work education and practice which may omit or overlook the effects of client violence and threats of violence in burnout prevention.

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