The influence of personality and preventive resources on perceived stress in German social work students

ABSTRACT

Social work students are preparing for a high risk profession that might involve occupational stress and stress-related health outcomes. The transactional stress model by Lazarus and Folkman describes the process of cognitive appraisals in response to potential stressors in the environment and what central variables are antecedent to the perception of stress. In this study the interplay of core facets of the transactional stress model is investigated in order to underline the importance of teaching and improving preventive resources in social work education programs. This study explored personality, stress prevention resources, perceived stress, and stress symptoms for social work students. Structural equation modelling was used to examine how students’ stress symptoms are influenced by these factors and how the interplay between those factors can best be described. A sample of German social work students was surveyed (n = 407). Evidence was found for direct effects of stress prevention resources on perceived stress and from perceived stress on psychological symptoms. Therefore this study provides insights into how perceived stress in social work students can be explained with the transactional model and that prevention strategies need to be included in their educational program.

KEYWORDS:

• social work education
• stress prevention
• students
• personality
• resources

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In most literature burnout is defined as a syndrome consisting of three dimensions emotional exhaustion, lack of personal accomplishment and depersonalization (Maslach, 1982).

2. Dispositional optimism can be seen as a global, generalized expectation that things will be good (Scheier & Carver, 1985). It can also be seen as an intrapersonal resource (Beddoe et al., 2013; Collins, 2007). To differentiate clearly between more stable constructs like personality and improvable aspects like resources that can be developed during the university program, optimism was here defined as a part of personality in the transactional model.

3. Transactional means, that a stressor does not necessarily lead to stress, but that the perception depends on subjective appraisal processes.

4. Instead of the terms ‘perceived helplessness’ and ‘perceived efficacy’ as used be Roberti et al. (2006) and Klein et al. (2016) the terms helplessness and lack of efficacy were used to avoid different polarity.

5. Students from sample 1 have to pass an (up to) one year internship for state recognition after finishing three years at university. In the university program for sample 2 a workplace training and higher education courses at university are alternated.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [01FP13068F]; State of Lower Saxony; Niedersächsisches Vorab der Volkswagenstiftung [12.3-76251-99-60/14].

Notes on contributors

Andrea D. Schwanzer

Andrea D. Schwanzer, Ph.D., Psychologist, is a Professor for Psychology and Counseling in the Department of Social Work at the Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany. Her research interests are stress and burnout prevention in educational settings, counseling self-concept development and measurement, and occupational health.

Annette Ullrich

Annette Ullrich, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Social Work at the Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart. She received her Ph.D. in Special Education and Child Development from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her areas of teaching and research include pedagogy and learning, challenging behavior, and preventive resources in stress and coping.

Richard G. Lambert

Richard G. Lambert, Ph.D., Ed.S. is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership in the Cato College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Director of the Center for Educational Measurement and Evaluation, and Editor of the Journal of Applied Educational Policy Research. His research interests include formative assessment for young children, applied statistics, and teacher stress and coping.

C. Missy Moore

C. Missy Moore, Ph.D., NCC is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services in the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia. Her research interests include wellness and impairment among professional counselors and clinical populations, applied measurement, and research methods in counseling.

Cornelia Krüger

Cornelia Krueger has a M. Sc. in Business Psychology from University of Bremen and is currently a doctoral candidate at Paedagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg. Her work focuses on the work-related stressors and resources of social workers and she develops an inventory to gather and assess these factors.