The relationship between work environment, sense of coherence and compassion fatigue amongst employee assistance programme (EAP) practitioners
Date
2008-05-16T08:53:07Z
Authors
Hlengani, Lloyd David
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The negative impacts of trauma on clients are well known. However, the negative impact of
working with traumatized clients on the counselor or helper has received less attention in the
literature. Similarly, the contributions of certain work environments to experiences of compassion
fatigue and the role of personality characteristics have gone unnoticed, especially in the South
African context. The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between compassion
fatigue, sense of coherence and work environment variables (job control, workload and collegial
support), and to determine whether sense of coherence moderates the relationship between
work environment and compassion fatigue on a sample of Employee Assistance Programme
(EAP) practitioners in the South African organisational context (both public and private sectors).
The current study adopted a non-experimental research design, categorised as cross-sectional
and correlational. A non-probability sampling procedure was utilised. A sample of ninety-nine
(99) EAP practitioners was obtained. A 10-items Job Control Scale (Wall, Jackson and
Mullarkey, 1995), Workload and Collegial Support Scale by Dewe (1987) 11-items each, a 30-
items Compassion Fatigue Self-Test Scale (Figley, 1995), and 13-items Orientation to Life
Questionnaire (QLQ-13/SOC-13) by Antonovsky (1987; 1993) were administered. Results
indicate that the sample in the current study were at higher risk of experiencing compassion
fatigue. There was a positive significant relationship between workload, collegial support and
compassion fatigue, a negative insignificant correlation between job control and compassion
fatigue, and positive insignificant relationship between sense of coherence and compassion
fatigue. The results between sense of coherence and the work environment variables were
insignificant. Finally, sense of coherence was only found to moderate the relationship between
workload and compassion fatigue and the relationship between collegial support and
compassion fatigue.
Description
Keywords
work environment, employee assistance programmes, sense of coherence, compassion fatique, secondary trauma