Correctional officer burnout, absenteeism, and physical health through a salutogenic lens: understanding the roles of coworker interactions and individual resilience

Details

• Personal Author:
  Reeves DW III
• Description:
  Past research aimed at understanding what contributes to burnout, absenteeism, and poor physical health in correctional officers has had what can be referred to as a pathogenic focus because it attempted to identify what factors increased these negative outcomes. Researchers have recently suggested that to fully understand where individuals end up on the ease/disease continuum it is pertinent to understand not only the harmful factors but also factors that lead to positive outcomes through a process known as a salutogenesis. The current research addresses this shortcoming by developing a salutogenic model of burnout, absenteeism and physical health in correctional officers by focusing on the positive relationships correctional officers have with their coworkers, namely coworker instrumental support and civility climate, as well as their own sense of coherence, which can be considered a form of individual resilience. In addition to building a salutogenic model of burnout, absenteeism, and physical health in correctional officers, the current research also explored the possible interactive effects of coworker instrumental support and civility climate on these same outcomes. Survey data from 328 correctional employees were analyzed with structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among coworker instrumental support, civility climate, sense of coherence, and burnout, absenteeism and physical health. Results suggest that increases in coworker instrumental support, civility climate and sense of coherence are all related to decreased burnout in correctional officers. In addition, the results suggest that coworker instrumental support and civility climate interact and impact experiences of burnout. Correctional officers with the highest burnout had high civility climate but low coworker instrumental support, whereas correctional officers with the lowest burnout had both high civility climate and high coworker instrumental support. The current findings emphasize the importance of addressing coworker instrumental support in conjunction with civility climate while also focusing on individual resilience. Implications for recruitment, job design and training possibilities, as well as study limitations and future research directions are discussed. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Correctional Facilities Fatigue Men Mental Health Occupational Health Pathology Safety Stress, Psychological Women Workplace
• Keywords:
  Correctional-facilities Humans Models Physical-stress Physiological-effects Physiological-factors Physiological-fatigue Physiological-function Physiological-stress Physiology Psychological-effects Psychological-stress Psychology Stress Task-performance Work-environment Worker-health Workers

  More +
• Publisher:
  University of Connecticut
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Dissertation
• Place as Subject:
  Connecticut ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-59
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047457
• Citation:
  Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut, 2014 Aug; :1-59
• Email:
  david.reeves@uconn.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Performing Organization:
  University of Connecticut Storrs, Storrs-Mansfield
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Correctional officer burnout, absenteeism, and physical health through a salutogenic lens: understanding the roles of coworker interactions and individual resilience
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6d379858467e70646fe8a0411ad4e0ef55609eb46994a84965ec90c7147f0f231ca30f21c8145aca742688c142f927c9707f1f5e8a60afc8e21c535e0552f745
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202515/cdc_202515_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 509.34 KB ]