Disability support workers face a number of challenges PDF

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Disability support workers face a number of challenges; these include working an enormous number of hours, working one on one with clients in isolated environments, little knowledge about client’s disability and some clients’ aggressive behaviours (Di Martino, 2003). Research indicates that high levels of stress and the challenges that arise when working as a disability support worker can result in burnout (Asad and Khan, 2003). Burnout is defined as a state of physical, emotional and psychological fatigue caused by high levels of stress (Potter et al., 2010). It is commonly triggered by work demands such as working with clients with challenging behaviours and relationships with clients, co-workers and employers(Karatepe and Uludag, 2008). A study was conducted on disability support workers to analyse the direct and indirect relationship between work demands and the support workers’ emotional response to the client’s behaviour and their work engagement (Mutkins et al., 2011). The results showed that depression symptoms and no support from the organisation resulted in emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. Emotional exhaustion is a state in which one feels emotionally worn-out and exhausted as a consequence of stress from work tasks and responsibilities, it is also known as burnout (Schaufeli, 2014). Burnout in the workplace is a very common issue that has been identified over the past few years in all industries worldwide. Burnout may result in a decrease in one’s engagement and an increase the employee’s desire to find a new career (Harrison and Gordon, 2014). Research was conducted by Karatepe and Uludag (2008) to test the argument that a decrease in one’s performance at work may be a result of burnout in the workplace. It was found that stress and burnout resulted in a significant decrease in one’s performance at work (Karatepe and Uludag, 2008). There are several ways in which emotional exhaustion can be avoided. This includes insuring that staff are engaged and motivated, as well as ensuring that a psychosocial safety climate is maintained in the workplace. Work engagement can be seen as the opposite of burnout and stress. It can be defined as, “a positive, fulfilling, work- related state of mind characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption.” (Bakker, 2019) Work engagement has been related to an increase in job performance. Further, a psychosocial safety climate refers to a workplace climate which offers employee psychological health, wellbeing and safety (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). It is associated with the PSC theory of the Job Demands-Resource model. Together, work engagement and a psychosocial safety climate can reduce burnout. AWB?

Asad, N., & Khan, S. (2003). Relationship between job-stress and burnout: organizational support and creativty as predictor variables. Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, 18(3-4). Di Martino, V. (2003). Relationship between work stress and workplace violence in the health sector. Geneva: ILO.

Mutkins, E., Brown, R. F., & Thorsteinsson, E. B. (2011). Stress, depression, workplace and social supports and burnout in intellectual disability support staff. Journal of intellectual disability research, 55(5), 500-510. Potter, P., Deshields, T., Divanbeigi, J., Berger, J., Cipriano, D., Norris, L., & Olsen, S. (2010). Compassion Fatigue and Burnout. Clinical journal of oncology nursing, 14(5).

Schaufeli, W. B., & Salanova, M. A. R. I. S. A. (2014). Burnout, boredom and engagement at the workplace. People at work: An introduction to contemporary work psychology, 293320....