The Impact of Stress, Resilience, Grit, and Intolerance of Uncertainty on Job Satisfaction

The present survey study measured the relationship between and degree to which perceived stress, grit, resilience, and intolerance of uncertainty (i.e., personal factors) are found in speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and sought to understand the impact of these factors on SLP job satisfaction and professional quality of life while considering stress and work setting (i.e., job factors).

The results demonstrated ambivalence in SLP job satisfaction levels. Increased job satisfaction is primarily associated with reduced perceived stress. Personal factors such as grit, resilience, and intolerance of uncertainty do not appear to be additive to job satisfaction. Both professional quality-of-life compassion satisfaction and burnout (BO) are influenced by resilience. Professional quality-of-life BO is also influenced by perceived stress. Grit and perceived stress both have a positive relationship with professional quality-of-life secondary traumatic stress.

Findings suggest that higher resilience and lower perceived stress may contribute to greater job satisfaction and professional quality of life, informing prospective speech-language pathology students, SLP training programs, current SLPs, and SLP employers on action steps to recruit and retain personnel.