No description available.

Home carers working chiefly with older adults were invited to participate in the study. Fifty nine consented and completed the questionnaires. Data was collected on external stressors, mediating factors, and strain indices experienced by home carers in their workplace. Well established measures were used, the General Health Questionnaire, the Occupational Stress Inventory, the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (short-form), the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale, as well as a demographic questionnaire designed for the study. The results indicated that the majority of home carers experienced various aspects of their jobs as stressful, namely role demands but do not necessarily report strain. A range of coping strategies used by this group were assessed. As expected wishful thinking as a coping strategy was positively correlated with the emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation dimensions of burnout, reduced job satisfaction and general emotional mental health. Social support and problem-solving were also used as strategies, the success of social support was highlighted by the negative correlations found with the emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation dimensions of burnout, and positive correlations found with job satisfaction. The differences between the home carers sample and the norm groups on the job satisfaction scale, the burnout scale, and GHQ-12 indicated significant lower levels of burnout, equal levels of job satisfaction, and a significantly lower proportion of clinical caseness. The stressful aspects of the home carer work were discussed. Although care work was viewed as rewarding by many nevertheless some indicators of stress were present. It was conjectured that the deleterious effects of reported stress was being effectively mediated through use of the various constructive strategies, namely social support from family and colleagues. Limitations of the study are discussed both in terms of method used, the nature of the sample and the issues around the measure of stress and relevant moderators.

This diploma thesis focuses on the issue of occupational stress and burnout syndrome among psychologists and special pedagogues employed in Educational and Psychological Counselling Centers. The main objective of the thesis was to explore occupational stress and burnout in these helping professions and to identify effective coping strategies and preventive measures. The theoretical part of the thesis is divided into two main sections. The first section defines the concepts of occupational stress and burnout, describes main theoretical model related to these concepts, and examines coping strategies and prevention. The second part focuses on the profession of psychologist and special pedagogues, with a specific focus on occupational health risk typical for these helping professions. The theoretical part of the thesis is concluded with a research review of relevant international and Czech empirical studies. The empirical part of the thesis aimed to explore, via qualitative research, subjective experiences of stress and burnout among psychologists and special pedagogues employed in Educational and Psychological Counselling Centers. Relatedly, the research aimed to identify coping strategies and prevention measures. The data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with 10 participants. The...