Spirituality and its contribution to increasing psychological resilience and decreasing burnout amongst first responders in the City of Johannesburg
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Date
2021-04
Authors
Williams, Rebecca Jane
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Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
First responders around the world suffer from high levels of burnout and other psychological symptoms related to their exposure to traumatic events. Psychological resilience is an
important factor in mitigating the effects of this exposure, whereas the effects of spirituality/religiosity have not been clearly determined. The primary aim of this study was to determine the levels of work-related burnout and psychological resilience among first responders working in the City of Johannesburg. Furthermore, this study aimed to determine the levels of religiosity and spirituality in this population and their correlation with psychological resilience and work-related burnout. A non-experimental, cross-sectional, and criterion-group design was used. Firefighters, emergency medical technicians and disaster managers employed by the City of Johannesburg were identified using purposive sampling, eventually constituting a sample of 111 participants. The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, the Brief Resilience Scale, the Duke University Religion scale and a biographical questionnaire were used to gather information from the participants. Stepwise regression analysis was done to determine the association between burnout, resilience and religiosity/spirituality. Results from the study showed that first responders had high levels of burnout and were not always able to access the help they required. Having attended stress management training correlated with higher resilience and lower burnout scores. For the sub-group of firefighters, higher levels of spirituality correlated with both increased resilience and lower burnout scores. Based on these findings, recommendations were made for increased mental health awareness, training and access to support structures for first responders.
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Keywords
Dissertation (M.Disaster Management (Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa))--University of the Free State, 2021, First responder, Burnout, Spirituality, Psychological resilience, Johannesburg