Beliefs, attachment style and secondary trauma as predictors of burnout in care staff for looked after children

• Main Author: Klama, Eve Katrin
• Published: Staffordshire University 2015
• Subjects: 616.89; C800 Psychology
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.678233

Work-related stress (including burnout and occupational stress) are an increasing threat to people’s wellbeing at work. Despite their common occurrence among staff in healthcare settings, little effort has been put into researching unregistered care staff. This is a group of healthcare employees who are exposed to significant stressors while executing frontline care tasks in health and social care settings, and who are not registered with a governing body. The first chapter explores the effectiveness of different interventions aimed at easing work-related stress in care staff. This chapter reviewed thirteen published studies and identified the emotional exhaustion component of burnout, involving tension, irritability and fatigue, as the most significant factor. Research is varied and often not based on evidence-based factors, such as organisational factors, known to contribute towards work-related stress. The significant design and methodological limitations of the studies reviewed limit the conclusions that can be drawn regarding the effectiveness of such interventions. In response to this, the second paper explores the influence of individual factors on burnout in a sample of care staff for looked after children, a currently under researched population who work with vulnerable and traumatised children. This study used multiple regression to analyse a range of predictors of burnout: attachment styles, beliefs, secondary trauma, previous traumatic events and time worked with looked after children. Results indicated that secondary trauma, and secondary trauma avoidance specifically, is a highly significant predictor for all burnout dimensions. These findings were explored in relation to their clinical implications, including their contribution towards the development of interventions for those working with looked after children. The final chapter provides a first person reflective commentary on the process and completion of this project, and further considers the findings of the literature review and the empirical paper.