The Influence of Organizational Characteristics and Psychological Empowerment on Secondary Traumatic Stress of Social Workers Working With Family Violence or Sexual Assualt Survivors
Choi, Ga-Young
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87338
Description
Title
The Influence of Organizational Characteristics and Psychological Empowerment on Secondary Traumatic Stress of Social Workers Working With Family Violence or Sexual Assualt Survivors
Author(s)
Choi, Ga-Young
Issue Date
2009
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Mary Keegan Eamon
Department of Study
Social Work
Discipline
Social Work
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Psychology, Industrial
Language
eng
Abstract
The study found that social workers who perceived to have more support from their coworkers, supervisors, and work teams had lower levels of secondary traumatic stress. Social workers who had more access to organizational strategic information also exhibited lower levels of secondary traumatic stress. However, other organizational support variables, for example, organizational resources and culture did not affect social workers' secondary traumatic stress experience. Among the demographic/control variables, only having a personal trauma history was significantly related to secondary traumatic stress. All of the organizational support variables were positively associated with psychological empowerment except for having access to organizational resources. The social workers who reported higher levels of psychological empowerment also had lower levels of secondary traumatic stress. None of the work condition variables, such as hours providing services to family violence or sexual assault clients and quality of clinical supervision, predicted secondary traumatic stress or psychological empowerment of social workers. The study did not find that psychological empowerment mediated the relationship between the two organizational support variables (sociopolitical support and access to strategic information) and secondary traumatic stress. Despite this lack of mediation, the study offers important and innovative findings. Implications for social work practice as well as future research directions are suggested based on the findings.
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