The influence of personal resources on job satisfaction among professionals in the inpatient care of burdened children and adolescents

Abstract

Professionals in the inpatient care of burdened and partially traumatized children and adolescents are confronted with high demands in their everyday work. If these professionals do not have the necessary resources to carry out their work, their job satisfaction can be af-fected negatively. In the present study, the connections between the personal resources action competence, emotional competence, self-efficacy and self-care and job satisfaction were investigated on a sample of N = 543 professionals working in the (inpatient) care of children and adolescents. The survey was conducted as part of the accompanying research of an online course called “Trauma informed Care”. Correlations as well as a multiple regression were calculated for the connections between personal resources and job satisfaction. Moderate to strong correlations were identified between personal resources and job satisfaction. The regression model revealed self-efficacy, followed by self-care, to be the most important predictor of job satisfaction. Less importance could be ascribed to emotional competence as a predictor of job satisfaction. Action competence showed no effects in the model. The results indicate the importance of personal resources for job satisfaction. These should be promoted in a targeted manner to increase job satisfaction and thus counteract the tendency of fluctua-tion and shortage of professionals in the area of child and youth welfare and thereby ensuring high quality care of the vulnerable population.