Burnout, Informal Social Support and Psychological Distress among SocialWorkers

Abstract

Previous research has shown that social workers are a profession at risk of suffering a high incidence of so-called burnout syndrome. Burnout is in turn related to psychological distress. Social support from informal sources is a factor with potential to reduce the psychological distress caused by burnout. However, the previous research has not considered informal social support in sufficient detail. This article, using a cross-sectional study, analyses the relationship between burnout, informal social support and psychological distress in a sample of social workers in Spain (n ¼ 189). The results show a high incidence of psychological distress and burnout, above all in terms of Emotional Exhaustion (EE). The results of the hierarchical regression analysis confirm the importance of informal social support as a variable negatively related to distress, even in the presence of burnout. Surprisingly, organisational variables were not associated with distress. Longitudinal and qualitative research is necessary to examine the nature of this relationship in detail.