Acceptance-Based Interventions For Direct Care Staff: An Assessment Of Need

Research suggests staff working with individuals with disabilities experience a significant amount of work-related stress. To combat this, organizations often employ stress reduction workshops. Research on such workshops has produced mixed findings. The current study had three objectives: (1) further explore relations between psychological flexibility, psychological distress, and job satisfaction among direct care staff, (2) determine the potential utility of a modified version of psychological flexibility specifically for direct care staff, and (3) extrapolate the potential utility of a stress management workshop for staff based on the processes within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. For objective 1, a strong relation was found between psychological distress and both measures of psychological flexibility. Additionally, a small relation was found between job satisfaction and psychological flexibility and a moderate relation was found between job satisfaction and the direct care staff measure of psychological flexibility. For objective 2, evidence was shown that a potential utility does exist for a measure of psychological flexibility specifically designed around direct care staff. For objective 3, results showed a significant proportion of individuals working as direct care staff may be “at risk”, and thus, more likely to benefit from a stress management intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.