The cost of caring : secondary traumatic stress and burnout among lay trauma counsellors in the Western Cape Province

Abstract

The psychological and emotional risks associated with providing care to traumatized populations have been largely overlooked in the literature on non-professional trauma counselling in South Africa. Non-professional or lay trauma counsellors are frontline service providers and typically the first point of contact for people in community contexts who have experienced traumatic events. The main aim of this study was to investigate the professional quality of life including compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout of a sample (N = 146) of lay trauma counsellors in the Western Cape Province. Demographic factors including age and gender were found to be significant. Older age was associated with compassion satisfaction while younger age predicted burnout.