클라이언트의 폭력이 사회복지시설 종사자의 이직의도에 미치는 영향

Abstract

Social workers working for social welfare facilities have previously been identified as being at risk of experiencing client violence as well as stress and burnout. According to the overview of the literature, client violence is defined as including intentional incidents of actual physical attacks, attempted physical attacks, threats, and property damage. Stress can be defined as the emotional and physiological reactions to stressors. Finally, burnout is a syndrome with dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment. Social work is strongly client-based, with workers being involved in complex social situations. As such they can experience many of the conflicts that are evident in human service work. Most writers suggest that social work is a highly stressful occupation, with stress deriving not only from role conflict between client advocacy and meeting agency needs but also from client violence. According to the results of previous studies, burnout is a particularly serious feature of chronic stress and one that can impair the human service worker's effectiveness. The relationship between client violence and its adverse consequences on victims' personal and organizational functioning such as stress, negative reactions, and burnout is an important issue, not only because of lowered general well-being in victims, but also because a victimized workforce can reduce the efficacy of service delivery and increase the intention of turnover. In particular, violence from clients has been judged to be a contributory factor to problems of staff retention in social work. The aims of this study are two fold. First, this study investigates the content and prevalence of client violence amongst social workers working for social welfare facilities. Second, this study assesses the proposed causal relationships among client violence and its negative effects on stress, negative reactions, burnout, and turnout intention. A proposed structural model to the field of social work is tested using Structural Equation Modeling(SEM). The causal model has been identified to have a structural explanation for the relationships among experiences of client violence, stress, negative reactions, burnout, and turnout intention. A number of hypotheses are proposed to explain the contextual and structural relationship between variables mentioned above. The research involved questionnaires and the areas covered in the questionnaire were: nature and types of client violence experienced, victims' negative reactions, stress, reactions of social welfare facilities to client violence, burnout, and turnover intention as well as socioeconomic backgrounds. A quota sampling together with a judgement sampling is taken of social workers working for social welfare facilities in "G" Metropolitan City and "J" Province. Confidentiality was assured, and it was emphasized that no names were required and that no individual, team, or authority would be identified in any way in the dissemination of results. Five hundred and fifty seven usable questionnaires were returned. The study employs a number of statistical analyses including descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, factor analysis, t-test, ANOVA, structural equation modeling (SEM), and so on. The results of the study are as follows. First, the mean of incidents of client violence in the past year over the whole respondents came out to be 1.7199 (standard deviation .57155). There was a variation in the experiences of client violence according to the individual characteristics of respondents. Second, the current study identified a causal relationship between client violence, stress, negative reactions, burnout, and turnover intention: reactions of social welfare facilities to client violence had a negative and direct effect on experiences of client violence; experiences of client violence had a positive and direct effect on stress, negative reactions, and turnover intention; stress had a positive and direct effect on negative reactions and decreases in personal accomplishment; negative reactions had a positive and direct effect on emotional exhaustion, decreases in personal accomplishment, and turnover intention; and emotional exhaustion had a positive and direct effect on turnover intention. Third, this study also identified the existence of the moderated effect of gender, marriage status, and work period. Gender was a moderating variable: gender moderated the effect of reactions of social welfare facilities to client violence on experiences of client violence; gender moderated the effect of experiences of client violence on stress, negative reactions, and turnover intention; gender moderated the effect of stress on negative reactions and decreases in personal accomplishment; gender moderated the effect of negative reactions on emotional exhaustion and turnover intention; and gender moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention. Marriage status was a moderating variable: marriage moderated the effect of reactions of social welfare facilities to client violence on experiences of client violence; marriage moderated the effect of experiences of client violence on stress and negative reactions; marriage moderated the effect of stress on negative reactions, emotional exhaustion, decreases in personal accomplishment, and turnover intention; marriage moderated the effect of negative reactions on emotional exhaustion, decreases in personal accomplishment, and turnover intention; marriage moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention; and marriage moderated the effect of decreases in personal accomplishment on turnover intention. Finally, work period was a moderating variable: work period moderated the effect of reactions of social welfare facilities on experiences of client violence; work period moderated the effect of experiences of client violence on stress, negative reactions, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention; work period moderated the effect of stress on negative reactions and decreases in personal accomplishment; work period moderated the effect of negative reactions on emotional exhaustion and turnover intention; work period moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion and decreases in personal accomplishment on turnover intention. Discussion and implications are provided. It is concluded that the prevention of client violence is one of the most important alternatives to deal with the problem of turnover in the practice of social work. In addition, if client violence is occurred, organizational intervention is needed to diminish its negative effect on personal and organizational outcomes.