Ad hoc emotional regulation intervention program for a group of Spanish social workers

ABSTRACT

On several occasions, social workers experience symptoms of an anxious depressive nature, due to their work and the stress derived from it. For this reason, we aimed to design an ad hoc emotional management intervention program to evaluate its impact, combining quantitative and qualitative information. The study developed a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, performing T-tests on related sample. The ad hoc intervention program was developed for a group of social workers living in a rural area of Spain. The study also included a control group that did not receive any intervention. The Bar-On ICE, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the BCSQ-36 were used to evaluate the Emotional Intelligence factors, the Burnout syndrome and the Empathy processes. Most of the emotional intelligence and empathy factors showed statistically significant differences between the pretest and the posttest, in favor of the latter for the participants of the training. The control group’s T2 results worsened, as they had not received any form of intervention. This paper will discuss how these participants have incorporated the key takeaways of the intervention program in their emotional management at work.

KEYWORDS:

• Ad hoc intervention program
• social workers
• emotional management
• empathy
• stress management

Disclosure statement

There is no real or perceived conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of the research. The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article. Availability of data and material (data transparency): all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards.

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Dr. Luana Bruno and Dr. Alejandro Iborra Cuéllar.

The first draft of the manuscript was written by all the aforementioned authors and all of them commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics statement

In the present research project, all the ethical precepts established in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the opinions of the European Group on Science and New Technologies are rigorously abided by. In addition, in accordance with the provisions of the Organic Law 3/2018, of December 5, on the Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights (LOPDGDD), which regulates the right to information on data collection, the following points are reported.

Notes

1. There are several reasons why most of the team has been working together for the past twenty years. The first is the location of the headquarters. This team works in a region in the inner part of Spain, where there are many nearby villages to which the same social work center corresponds. These more rural areas have fewer social workers than the cities, so it is more likely that the same professionals will stay and work in the area on a permanent basis. Another aspect of relevance is that the concrete organization where these social workers work is a state funded organization, therefore most of the employees have a permanent employment contract.

2. DT: standard deviation, Pearson’s correlation coefficient r. These abbreviations will be present in all the following tables. The effect size for the t-test for independent samples was calculated using Cohen’s d.

3. DT: standard deviation, Pearson’s correlation coefficient r. These abbreviations will be present in all the following tables. The effect size for the t-test for independent samples was calculated using Cohen’s d.

4. The names used are fictitious in order to respect the privacy of the participants, we can not provide information about the profile of each participant for the same reasons.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Dr. Luana Bruno and Dr. Alejandro Iborra Cuéllar. The first draft of the manuscript was written by all the aforementioned authors and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Notes on contributors

Luana Bruno

Luana Bruno is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Developmental and Educational Psychology Area. Both are part of the Daisaku Ikeda Institute for Research in Education and Development, developing research focused on emotional development programs based on dialogical and collaborative practices.

Alejandro Iborra Cuéllar

Alejandro Iborra Cuéllar is a Full Professor in the Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Alcalá.