Social Worker Burnout in Israel: Contribution of Daily Stressors Identified by Social Workers

The paper examines the contributions to burnout of three day-to-day job stressors-abuse by service users, thwarted implementation of professional decisions and job-related dilemmas-which had been identified as especially upsetting by social workers in a previous study. The study participants were 363 social workers employed in direct service provision in municipal welfare departments in Israel. Since some were employed in the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality and others in municipalities elsewhere in Israel, place of employment was included in the analyses. The findings show that abuse by service users and place of employment contributed to all three of Maslach's dimensions of burnout, while neither thwarted implementation of professional decisions nor job-related dilemmas contributed significantly to any of them. The contribution of client abuse challenges previous findings suggesting that service user factors play little role in burnout. The finding that the Tel Aviv-Yafo social workers had less burnout than the others requires further examination to determine why.