There are a lot of concerns about the burnout syndrome among social workers. This research focuses on the burnout syndrome of social workers working in service centers for the elderly. Thus this research is an attempt to analyze the degree to which th...
There are a lot of concerns about the burnout syndrome among social workers. This research focuses on the burnout syndrome of social workers working in service centers for the elderly. Thus this research is an attempt to analyze the degree to which these workers are affected and to explore possible contributing factors such as individual, occupational, and the organizational factors to such burnout.
For this research, social workers working in social service centers for the elderly located in Chung Nam region. The subjects were selected from medical social institutions, nursing homes, and specialized nursing homes; a total number of 137 workers out of 200 from 13 institutions participated in the study by completing the surveys. The data was collected and then analyzed with SPSS WIN 11.5 program.
The results were as follows:
First, workers in social institutions for the elderly were less affected by the burnout syndrome than social workers in general. The level of their sense of accomplishment was also found to be lower than the level of their emotional exhaustion.
Second, individual characteristics were examined in relation to the burnout rate among workers in social service centers for the elderly; all five variables, age, marital status, self esteem, self efficacy, and physical health were all negatively correlated with the burnout rate.
Three, looking at the relation between their job-related factors and the burnout syndrome of the workers, work-related stress, relationships with clients, and plans to leave or change jobs were found to be correlated with the burnout syndrome. Among these, the relationship with the clients was what affected the workers the most.
Four, looking at the organizational factors in relation to the burnout syndrome of the workers, relationships with co-workers and superiors and the work environment were found to have significant negative correlations with the burnout syndrome.
Five, analyzing all of the above by multiple regression, it was found that the factors contributing to the burnout syndrome were: self-efficacy(p<.05), relationships with the client(p<.001), plans to leave or change job(p<.05), and relationship with superiors(p<.05). They were all significantly related to the burnout syndrome and of these, relationships with clients had the strongest correlation(β=-.320), followed by plans to change or leave jobs (β=-.208), relationship with superior(β=-.194), and self-efficacy(β=-.179).
Based on the results of this research, several suggestions can be made to reduce the burnout syndrome for workers in social institutions for the elderly. First, the workers' relationships with clients, the strongest contributing factor to the burnout, must be dealt with by helping the workers to understand the problems of the elderly through continuing education. Second, professional supervision must be provided in systematical ways to provide consistent support to the workers, and third, the improvement of social systems must take place.