האם פיתוח מקצועי ממתן את הקשר בין חשיפה של עובדות סוציאליות למצבי לחץ יום-יומיים לבין שחיקה?

Background: Social workers’ working environments are rife with stress, excessive workloads professional dilemmas, and role conflicts, which might cause burnout and influence their professional work.Aims: To examine associations between social workers’ exposure to daily stressors (conflicts with service-users, peers and managers, and ethical dilemmas) and burnout. Additionally, we tested whether the associations are moderated by supervision, continuing education programs, and workers’ perceptions regarding professional development and promotion opportunities within their organization.Method: 525 social workers responded to a self-report questionnaire, distributed through relevant social media. Following data analysis, a focus group of 11 workers was conducted to discuss the findings and provide possible explanations to them.Findings: The hypotheses were partially confirmed: a significant positive correlation was found between exposure to daily stressors and burnout; also, opportunities for professional development and promotion predicted lower burnout. However, supervision, continuing education programs, professional development, and promotion options did not moderate these associations. Conclusions and implications for practice: The findings support claims regarding the challenges that social workers face on a daily basis. They call for the advancement of wide structural responses to the stressors that social workers deal with, including quality supervision and ongoing education and training that suits the workers’ needs.