Demands, Control, Goal-related Feedback, and Case Managers’ Affective Well-being: A Two-sample Mediation Study

ABSTRACT

Purpose: An understudied, but important, topic within the social work literature is the affective well-being of human service case managers. The groundbreaking demand-control (DC) model predicts additive effects for job demands and job control on job-related affective well-being. Meta-analytic data and comprehensive literature reviews report inconclusive findings for this classic additive model.

Method: This two-sample cross-sectional field survey study sought to address both issues by testing a recently introduced modified additive model using 810 human service case managers from the state of New York.

Results: Mediational analyzes (i.e., structural equation modelling and bootstrapping) confirmed goal-related feedback’s intervening role on the job control-wellbeing relationship for each sample.

Discussion: Results not only contribute uniquely to the evidence-based social work literature, but also help clarify forty years of inconsistent classic additive model findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective well-being
• demand-control model
• goal-related feedback
• human services
• social work