Abstract
Background: Child-protection workers are at elevated risk for secondary traumatization. However, research in the area of secondary traumatization has been hampered by two major obstacles: the use of measures that have unclear or inadequate psychometric properties and equivocal findings on the degree of associated functional impairment.
Objective: To assess the relationship between secondary traumatization and burnout using exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) and to assess the relationship between secondary traumatization and functional impairment.
Methods: A survey of Danish child-protection workers was conducted through the Danish Children Centres (N = 667). Secondary traumatization was measured using the Professional Quality of Life-5 (ProQoL-5) and burnout using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory.
Results: A three-factor ESEM model provided the best fit to the data, reflecting factors consistent with the structure of secondary traumatization and burnout. The factors were differentially related to trauma-related and organizational variables in ways consistent with existing evidence. All factors were significantly related to functional impairment.
Conclusion: The findings supported the discriminant validity of secondary traumatization and burnout while highlighting methodological issues around the current use of sum-score approaches to investigating secondary traumatization. The current study supported the clinical relevance of secondary traumatization by linking it explicitly to social and cognitive functional impairment.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1724416 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
Journal | European Journal of Psychotraumatology |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 27 Feb 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published online - 27 Feb 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for generous funding under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions, Grant Agreement No. 722523.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- Secondary traumatisation
- burnout
- child protection
- exploratory structural equation modelling
- discriminant validity
- functional impairment
- Secondary traumatization
- child welfare