Telephone Crisis Support Workers' Intentions to Use Recommended Skills While Experiencing Functional Impairment

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Mental Health Services
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Empathic engagement with distressed individuals can cause psychological distress and functional impairment in helping professionals.
• This impact on helping professionals can hinder their ability to provide optimal patient care.
• The effects of such distress on telephone crisis support workers are not well-documented in existing literature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between functional impairment and the intention to use recommended support skills among telephone crisis support workers.
• To assess this relationship in a national sample of these workers.

Main Methods:

• An online survey was administered to 210 telephone crisis support workers.
• Participants reported on their functional impairment and their intentions to utilize recommended crisis support skills.
• The survey included callers reporting suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety symptoms.

Main Results:

• A significant inverse relationship was found between functional impairment and the intention to use recommended support skills.
• Telephone crisis support workers with higher levels of functional impairment reported lower intentions to use recommended skills.
• This effect was observed in the past month's reported functional impairment.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest that functional impairment may negatively affect telephone crisis support workers' application of skills.
• Further research is recommended to identify the causes of functional impairment in these workers.
• Developing strategies to manage functional impairment is crucial for optimizing worker well-being and caller support.