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Taking care of those who care: Assessing organizational and individual stress management interventions for anti-violence workers
RS2008-IG30
Final Report Date: November 2010
| Principal Applicant: | Janice Abbott (Atira Women's Resource Society) |
| Lynda Dechief (Equality Consulting); Georgia Pomaki (Simon Fraser University) |
For more information about this project, please contact Lynda Dechief or Georgia Pomaki.
Issue
Caring for survivors of violence and trauma at women’s shelters can be extremely stressful and may result in staff experiencing symptoms of burnout. This project examined the impact of two types of interventions aimed at addressing this challenge in a large B.C. women’s anti-violence organization (Atira Women’s Resource Society). The interventions included previously implemented organizational level changes, such as pay increases and a shorter workweek, as well as an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course offered to staff during the study period.
Key findings
- Organizational and individual level interventions can decrease absenteeism and depression and improve workers’ health and well-being.
- Staff who participated in the eight-week MBSR course experienced significantly improved physical health, decreases in emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms, and an increased sense of professional efficacy, compared to staff on a wait-list for the course.
- Absenteeism rates stopped increasing and began to decline in the year after the organization implemented changes to improve staff working conditions.
Objectives
- To assess the impact of organizational level interventions (i.e., clinical debriefing, decreased work week, paid training, feedback sessions) on absenteeism rates
- To assess the effectiveness of an individual-level stress management intervention (MBSR) on burnout, and depressive and physical symptoms in anti-violence workers who received the intervention, compared to a wait-list control group
Methods
The impact of the organizational level interventions was examined by analyzing absenteeism rates for the organization over a five year period, as well as through staff surveys, interviews and focus groups.
A total of 21 staff participated in the MBSR course during the study period, while another 21 were on a wait list to take the course after the study, and were treated as the study’s control group. The course was led by MBSR specialists, and consisted of eight two-hour sessions focusing on mindfulness meditation, body awareness and relaxation, gentle stretching and movement, grounding and calming in the present moment, and learning how to work with uncomfortable mental states and physical sensations. In addition to the classes, participants committed to 30 minutes of daily practice. The MBSR course was modeled on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre.
Both groups completed a survey before and after the course. Changes in physical symptoms, depressive symptoms and burnout for the staff that took the course were assessed and compared with the wait list group symptoms over the same time period. Focus groups and individual interviews with MBSR participants, future participants and non-participants were also held at the end of the MBSR course to capture the experience and perceptions around MBSR.
Results
Impact of MBSR intervention
- The staff who took the course reported improvement in physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, emotional exhaustion and professional efficacy, while the wait-list group did not.
- Most of the participants who took the course made positive comments about the experience and its impact.
Impact of organization level interventions
- In general, workers were satisfied with the changes made by the organization – including paid training, debriefing meetings, pay increases and having a shorter workweek.
- Absenteeism rates increased from 2005 to 2008, but declined in 2009 after the organizational changes were implemented.
The authors conclude that a MBSR intervention and organizational changes may be able to reduce burnout, depression and absenteeism in anti-violence workers. They also note that the stress reduction techniques can be applied both at work and in workers’ personal lives, and this may translate into a longer lasting impact and greater health benefits for workers.
Future directions
Potential areas for future research include:
- A study of the MBSR intervention with a larger group of workers
- Conducting similar interventions with workers in other fields
- A randomized controlled trial of a MBSR workplace intervention
- A comparison of longer and shorter interventions, or MBSR interventions offered over the web (for some staff the time commitment of an eight week course was a barrier to participating)
- Analyzing Atira’s absenteeism and staff turnover rates again in the future to assess the longer term effects of the stress reduction interventions
- Analyzing the synergistic effects of organizational and individual level interventions over the long term
Publications and presentations
- Dechief, L., Pomaki, G., Abbott, J., & Antonopoulou, N. Taking care of those who care: Reducing the stress of anti-violence workers. Paper presented at the 2010 conference of the Canadian Association for Research on Work and Health (CARWH), May 28-29, Toronto.