The professional quality of life and its relation to self-care in mediation professionals

Abstract

When people or groups in conflict initiate a mediation process to try to reach an agreement, painful and distressing feelings emerge. Mediation professionals facilitate and promote understanding despite the suffering that arises along the way. Previous research has confirmed the impact of professional quality of life and self-care on successful task performance. This research is a pioneering study in the occupational field of mediation. The purpose of this study was to analyse the efficacy of personal and professional self-care practices in relation to the quality of professional life of Spanish mediators. Mediators presented moderately high levels of compassion satisfaction but also had moderately high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. Self-care positively correlated with compassion satisfaction and negatively with burnout and compassion fatigue. Positive associations were found between self-care and professional quality of life. Such a finding can help create personal and professional self-care practices to improve the lives of professionals.