Social work students, self-care, compassion fatigue, and burnout

Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-39).This thesis examined the impact of self-care, compassion fatigue and burnout on social work students, measured their prevalence and effects, identified their predictors, and attempted to identify more complete methods of addressing them. This was achieved through the use of the Self-Care Assessment, the Professional Quality of Life-IV (ProQOL-IV) survey, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). A total of seven research questions were examined statistically, to include: the most common methods of self-care employed, the overall levels of compassion fatigue, the overall levels of burnout, student demographic variables' prediction of the subscales of the ProQOL-IV, student demographic variables' prediction of the subscales of the MBI-HSS, the Self-Care Assessment subscales' prediction of the subscales of the ProQOL-IV, and the Self-Care Assessment subscales' prediction of the MBI-HSS for social work students in field internship placements. Questionnaires were sent out electronically, with a response rate of 39 students in field internship practicum placements. The results indicated that students most often attend to keeping their workplace and professional lives in order while placing less emphasis on their psychological and emotional needs. Additionally, students struggled for balance between their work and personal lives, with personal achievement proving to be tied to grade point average. Results also indicated that overall, students are happy with their work in the helping profession; yet also experienced burnout. Striving to achieve a high grade point average proved to negatively impact student compassion satisfaction, as did student social work program. Discussion included suggestions for the building of student strengths and resilience through programming, curriculum, and resources in order to help students to develop a more complete understanding of themselves as social work practitioners in order to promote long-term health and career longevit