Secondary Traumatic Stress and Burnout of North Korean Refugees Service Providers

OBJECTIVE The current study investigated the burnout and secondary traumatic stress of service providers for North Korean (NK) refugees based on the conceptual framework of theJob Demands-Resources (JD-R) model of workplace burnout. METHODS A cross-sectional self-administered survey was conducted with a national sample consisting of all 63 organizations in direct services to North Korean refugees. Of the estimated total number of 230 service providers comprising of social workers, psychotherapists, job counselors and paraprofessional counselors, 179 completed the survey, a 77.8% return rate. RESULTS While job resources such as personal commitment to work and organizational support indicated inverse relations to burnout, job demands such as workload, work environment and secondary traumatic stress (STS) showed a positive relationship to worker burnout. The STS were present in more than half of the respondents (51.3%), of which 20.7% of them indicating a severe level of STS. The STS proved to be the most significant risk to worker burnout as it showed strong relations to all three dimensions of burnout. CONCLUSION Structural issues of chronic work overload and poor work environment need to be addressed to reduce staff burnout. STS is a serious occupational hazard in working with North Korean refugees.