Hatton, C,. Rivers, M., Emerson, E., Kiernan, C., Reeves, D., Alborz, A., Mason, H., & Mason, L.,

1999,

Reviewed by Eric Emerson,
Professor of Clinical Psychology,
Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University

Methodology

Postal survey of 512 staff from seven community-based services for people with learning disabilities. Majority of staff (273) working in residential settings.

Critical Appraisal

No clear basis for the selection of participating services. While the response rate (42%) is good for postal survey, it still creates problems in judging the extent to which results can be generalised to the total workforce in participating organisations. Use of well validated measures.

Key Findings

Results indicated that:

• majority of staff were white women in their 30s, mostly living with partners and nearly half of whom had dependents;
• unqualified residential support workers had been working in services for people with learning disabilities for an average of 8 years and working in their current home for an average of nearly 4 years;
• qualified residential support workers had been working in services for people with learning disabilities for an average of 10 years and working in their current home for an average of 5.5 years;
• nearly 1 in 3 staff were experiencing high levels of psychological distress (this is twice as high as adults and working adults in general and is slightly higher than NHS staff in general), half of all staff reported their health to be 'bad to fair' (twice as high as adults in general);
• 1 in 8 staff reported applying for another post in the previous 3 months.

Social Work Practice/ Policy Implications

The high rates of psychological distress and poor self-reported health are likely to detract from the efficiency of the workforce employed in supported accommodation services. Further analyses of these data (Hatton, C., Emerson, E., Rivers, M., Mason, H., Mason, L., Swarbrick, R., Kiernan, C., Reeves, D., & Alborz, A., [1999]. Factors associated with staff stress and work satisfaction in services for people with intellectual disability. ( Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 43 , 253-267.) indicated that psychological distress and job strain were related to:

• personal coping style,
• lack of support,
• low status work,
• long hours,
• work-home conflict,
• alienation from the organisation
• role ambiguity.