Secondary Traumatic Stress, Burnout, and Psychological Distress among Mental Health Professionals

Abstract

Mental health professionals dedicatedly provide support to individuals suffering from psychological issues, in this process their own mental health may compromise. The current study was conducted to investigate the relationship between secondary traumatic stress, burn out and psychological distress, as well as to look for other factors that may contribute for the development of these issues. Current study utilized the cross sectional research design. The convenient sampling technique was used to collect data from 150 mental health professionals including clinical psychologist and psychiatrists. Two subscales of Professional quality of life scale (Stamm, 2009) were used to measure secondary traumatic stress and burnout and Psychological distress scale (Kessler, 1992) was used to measure psychological distress. Pearson Bivariate Correlation analysis suggests significant positive correlation between study variables. Regression analysis indicated Secondary Traumatic Stress as a significant positive predictor of psychological distress. Compared to clinical psychologist, psychiatrists have higher Secondary Traumatic Stress, Burnout and psychological distress. These findings highlight the need to develop appropriate strategies for these professionals to minimize secondary traumatic stress, burnout and psychological distress that in turn enable professionals to deliver quality mental health services for their clients.