Exposure to challenging behaviours and burnout symptoms among care staff: the role of psychological resources

Background: Staff supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities are at risk of burnout
symptoms. Evidence suggests an association between exposure to challenging behaviours of individuals with intellectual disabilities and burnout symptoms of staff, but the protective role of staff psychological resources in this relation has been understudied.

Results: We found a direct relation between exposure to challenging behaviours and increased levels of burnout symptoms in staff. Perceived supervisor social support, staff self-efficacy , resilience and extraversion were associated with reduced burnout symptoms. None of the proposed psychological resources moderated the association between exposure to challenging behaviours and burnout symptoms of staff.

Conclusions: Of the psychological resources found to be associated with reduced risk of burnout symptoms, staff self-efficacy and access of staff to supervisor social support seem to be the factors that can be influenced best. These factors thus may be of importance in reducing the risk of developing burnout symptoms and improving staff well-being, even though the current study was not designed to demonstrate causal relations between psychological resources and burnout symptoms.

Auteur: M. Klaver, B. J. van den Hoofdakker, H. Wouters, G. de Kuijper, P. J. Hoekstra
& A. de Bildt