Working with Trauma: Perceived Competence and Burnout in Mental Health Staff

This thesis consists of three papers that explore the impact on staff of working with survivors of trauma, and their preparedness to work with this client group. The first paper is a literature review investigating levels of burnout in mental health staff working with trauma. 21 papers were included in the review. These demonstrated that staff working exclusively with trauma have higher levels of burnout, specifically exhaustion, when compared with other mental health staff. The literature did not indicate that amount of secondary exposure to trauma is related to burnout in staff working in general mental health services. The second paper presents findings from a quantitative research study, exploring the relationship between training, knowledge and perceived competence amongst mental health staff working with survivors of complex trauma. This cross sectional survey indicated that clinicians had low levels of knowledge about complex trauma and its treatment. However, there was a moderate relationship between training and levels of knowledge. Both training and supervision were related to clinicians perceiving themselves as more competent in working with this client group and these relationships were fully mediated by clinicians’ perceptions of their knowledge. The third paper integrates the findings from the literature review and empirical study and considers their theoretical implications alongside recommendations for further research. The clinical implications from the aforementioned papers are then considered, with recommendations that services better equip staff to work with trauma to improve the quality of care provided by services