Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, Guangzhou Research Centre for Social Security, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Social and Public Administration School, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
Front Public Health. 2022 Jun 3;10:908800. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.908800. eCollection 2022.
Since the 2000s, local governments have contracted out more and more social services to social work organizations in China. Social workers are thus experiencing the inconsistency between local governments' and clients' demands and the deviation from the professional duty of helping clients, which may result in conflicting and unclear roles in their jobs and further lead to burnout. Based on the Role Stress-burnout Model and the previous theoretical and field-work investigations, this study examined the effects of the government-client work interaction frequency gap on social workers' burnout as well as the mediating effects of role ambiguity and conflict and the moderating effects of the non-front-line work.
A cross-sectional study of 2,643 front-line social workers and 2,599 supervisors or managers from 56 major cities all over China was conducted. Work burnout was measured by the 22-item three-dimension Maslach's Burnout Inventory Scale. Rizzo et al.'s 14-item scale measured role conflict and ambiguity. The government-client working interaction frequency gap was measured by the difference between the five-point level of work interaction frequency with governments minus the one with clients. Structural equation modeling was adopted to test the mediation and moderation models.
Results showed that for the front-line social workers, besides directly reducing personal accomplishment, the government-client work interaction frequency gap could indirectly neutralize its alleviating effects on emotional exhaustion (Mediating effect ratio = -63.64 %), make its total effects on depersonalization significant (37.03%), and reduce personal accomplishment further (23.08%) through increasing social workers' feeling of role conflict. However, the above mediating effects of role conflict were not significant for social workers with extra management or supervision workload, revealing the moderating effects of non-front-line work.
This study revealed that front-line social workers in China who had more work interaction with governments and less with clients could have higher role conflict, increasing their burnout further. Therefore, social work educational programs should include adequate mental adjustment courses and practical emplacement to prepare students for the potential role conflict. Furthermore, higher-level governments should issue relevant regulations to form a collaborative rather than an employment relationship between local governments and social worker organizations.
自 20 世纪 00 年代以来，中国地方政府将越来越多的社会服务外包给社会工作组织。社会工作者因此经历了地方政府和客户需求之间的不一致，以及偏离帮助客户的专业职责，这可能导致他们工作中的角色冲突和不明确，并进一步导致倦怠。基于角色压力-倦怠模型和之前的理论和实地工作调查，本研究考察了政府-客户工作互动频率差距对社会工作者倦怠的影响，以及角色模糊和冲突的中介作用和非一线工作的调节作用。
对来自中国 56 个主要城市的 2643 名一线社会工作者和 2599 名主管或经理进行了横断面研究。工作倦怠用 22 项三维度 Maslach 倦怠量表测量。Rizzo 等人的 14 项量表测量角色冲突和模糊性。政府-客户工作互动频率差距用政府工作互动频率的五分制减去客户工作互动频率的五分制来衡量。采用结构方程模型检验中介和调节模型。
结果表明，对于一线社会工作者来说，除了直接降低个人成就感外，政府-客户工作互动频率差距还可以通过增加社会工作者的角色冲突感，间接中和其对情绪耗竭的缓解作用（中介效应比=-63.64%），使对去个性化的总效应显著（37.03%），并进一步降低个人成就感（23.08%）。然而，角色冲突的上述中介效应对于具有额外管理或监督工作量的社会工作者并不显著，这揭示了非一线工作的调节作用。
本研究表明，与客户互动较少而与政府互动较多的中国一线社会工作者可能会有更高的角色冲突，进一步增加他们的倦怠感。因此，社会工作教育项目应包括足够的心理调整课程和实际安置，以帮助学生为潜在的角色冲突做好准备。此外，上级政府应发布相关法规，在地方政府和社会工作组织之间形成合作关系，而不是雇佣关系。
