Professional quality of life, depression, and meaning in life among helping professionals: The moderating role of self-competence in death work

Abstract

We examined the moderating role of self-competence in death work, and the relationships of professional quality of life with personal well-being and self-competence in death work. Two hundred helping professionals (mean age = 40.43, 85.5% female) completed a questionnaire. Better professional quality of life (i.e., a higher level of compassion satisfaction and lower levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress) was associated with better personal well-being and self-competence in death work. Self-competence in death work moderated the negative impact of a lower level of compassion satisfaction on depression. Implications on self-care of helping professionals doing death work are discussed.

Keywords:

• Meaning in life
• professional quality of life
• death work
• self-competence
• self-care

Disclosure statement

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