Social Workers' Caregiver Identity and Distress: Examining the Moderating Role of Self-esteem and Social Support

Recent attention has been given to role-based professional identity dysfunction. Social workers may be particularly vulnerable to develop their identity or sense of self around the role of a caregiver and experience distress as a result. The authors used a sample of 213 social workers to test a hypothesized curvilinear relationship between their caregiver role identity and distress based on the control theory perspective of identity process and the conservation of resources perspective of stress. Furthermore, they tested self-esteem and social support as moderators in this curvilinear relationship. Results show that distress increases exponentially as the caregiver identity level increases. In addition, self-esteem (as an internal resource) and social support (as an external resource) both buffer the impact of caregiver role identity on distress. The authors describe the theoretical contributions to the areas of work role identity and stress, as well as the practical implications for social workers, managers, and educators.