NCJ Number
219740
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 22 Issue: 6 Dated: August 2007 Pages: 465-474
Date Published
August 2007
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study examined the presence and potential predictors of burnout among a sample of 123 ethnically diverse female workers employed in 9 women's crisis shelters in the Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD, metropolitan areas.
Abstract
The study found that this sample of shelter workers had not experienced job burnout as defined by Maslach and Jackson (1986), i.e., as consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment. On average, the women exhibited moderate levels of emotional exhaustion, low levels of depersonalization, and moderate levels of personal accomplishment. They not only experienced their work as valuable and satisfying, but also felt connected to their clients. Stress associated with inadequate amounts of time to finish work or as having too much work to do contributed to the prediction of both emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. In order to help shelter employees cope with time pressure, employers might provide workshops that focus on time management skills. The ability to cope with stressors at work was predictive of a sense of personal accomplishment. Social support variables were not predictive of emotional exhaustion or a low sense of personal accomplishment. Future research should identify the ways in which individuals and organizations working with women in crisis can develop healthy functioning in the workplace. The women workers were administered various instruments that measured occupational stress, perceived social support, confidence in ability to cope with stressors, coping strategies, burnout, and demographics. 4 tables and 38 references