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Poster #169 - Workplace Wellness and Child and Adolescent Clinicians: Compassion Fatigue and Steps for Prevention

Fri, March 22, 9:45 to 11:00am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

With the emergence of electronic medical records, providers are expected to demonstrate increasingly greater productivity that contributes to vulnerabilities to compassion fatigue. Furthermore, surveys reveal that worker burnout is on the rise across sectors (Wiechers, 2017), which could have concerning implications for mental health treaters and quality of care. Studies have revealed many factors that can contribute to burnout and compassion fatigue including clinical setting (Vredenburgh, Carlozzi, & Stein, 1999), stressful life events (Baird & Kracen, 2006), gender and age (Sprang, Craig, & Clark, 2011), empathy (Turgoose & Maddox, 2017), caseload (Broome et al., 2009), and years in the same position (Galek et al., 2011). Protective factors have also been identified and include mindfulness (Brown et al., 2017), resilience (Burnett & Wahl, 2015) and peer support (Abu Bader, 2000). While studies have focused on specific groups of providers (e.g., nurses and mental health workers), it appears that no prior studies have explored compassion fatigue and prevention among child mental health clinicians. As the group of helpers endowed with the responsibility of supporting children and adolescents during developmentally fragile periods, child mental health clinicians are an important group on which to focus.

This study set out to explore a host of demographic and other factors (e.g., work setting, # of years employed, type of treatment provided, and salary level) in comparison to constructs of Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, and Secondary Traumatic Stress (ProQOL; Stamm, 2010). Two research questions guided the study: 1.) What factors are significantly related to clinician burnout and compassion fatigue?; and 2.) What factors are significantly related to the prevention of clinician burnout and compassion fatigue? The study included data gathered from mental health clinicians from varying clinical settings, the majority of whom work predominantly with children and adolescents (N = 102). Select findings include small to moderate strength positive correlations between self-reported Burnout and self-reported Financial Stress (.37), Daily Life Stress (.38), Health Stress (.34) and Job Conflict Stress (.47). Large positive correlations existed between self-reported Burnout and Social Stress (.50) and Job Security Stress (.53). With regard to feeling supported and understood, negative moderate correlations were found between Burnout and Supportive Work Environment (-.47), Supervisors Recognizing Challenges (-.40), and Supervisors Responsive to Needs (-.40). For mean group differences regarding Burnout, preliminary ANOVA results revealed significant findings for Geographic Region (e.g., rural, urban and suburban), F(2, 96) = 4.26, p < .05, partial η2 = .08, with homogenous variances and average Annual Income, F(5, 93) = 2.678, p < .05, partial η2 = .13, with homogenous variances. Lastly, Burnout Prevention strategies ranked by participants as most helpful included Training Staff on Self-Care Strategies (M = 11.66, SD = 3.07), Technological Solutions and Resources (M = 10.69, SD = 4.14), and Social Events and Informal Support (M = 10.47, SD = 3.42) with the strategy rated lowest being Flexible Work Schedules (M = 3.47, SD = 2.80). These findings have important prevention/intervention and mental health policy implications that will be explored and discussed.

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