Effects of mindfulness, coping styles and resilience on job retention and burnout in caregivers supporting aggressive adults with developmental disabilities.
Mindful, problem-solving caregivers burn out less and stay longer.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Barton et al. (2019) asked caregivers who support aggressive adults with developmental disabilities to fill out a survey. The survey measured how mindful they were, how they coped with stress, and how burned out they felt.
Three months later the team checked who was still on the job. They wanted to see if mindfulness and coping style predicted staying or leaving.
What they found
Caregivers who scored high on mindful openness and who used problem-focused coping reported less burnout. Those same people were more likely to still be working at the three-month check.
In plain words, staff who can notice feelings without judging them and who tackle problems head-on stay healthier on the job.
How this fits with other research
The finding lines up with Perez et al. (2015) and Smyth et al. (2015). Both earlier surveys showed that aggression exposure raises burnout, so finding a shield is useful.
Slowiak et al. (2022) extends the idea to BCBAs. Their survey found that self-care and job-crafting also cut burnout, showing the pattern holds across roles.
Ragulan et al. (2023) went a step further. They ran a short ACT workshop and saw burnout drop in behavioral technicians. This turns the 2019 "mindfulness helps" claim into an action you can run on Monday.
Why it matters
High turnover hurts the people we serve. Teaching staff to label feelings without judgment and to solve problems instead of avoiding them is cheap, fast, and needs no extra staff ratio. Add a five-minute mindfulness check-in at shift start or embed brief ACT exercises in monthly supervision. You keep experienced caregivers, cut training costs, and maintain better programs.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Considering the growing body of studies investigating the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on caregivers supporting people with developmental disabilities, the current study aimed to explore the role that the cognitive processes of mindfulness, coping style and resilience played in predicting caregiver retention and burnout among a sample of direct support professionals working with aggressive adults with developmental disabilities. METHODS: Ninety-seven direct support professionals were surveyed to determine level of mindfulness, coping styles, resilience and burnout and were interviewed 3 months later to determine if they were still working with the aggressive adult. RESULTS: Mindfulness skills of describing non-judgmentally and observing one's environment, as well as problem-focused coping, emerged as protective factors against burnout, while avoidance-focused and maladaptive coping emerged as risk factors. Mindful openness acted as the only predictor of job retention. CONCLUSIONS: These results support that paid caregivers should receive trainings in mindfulness and positive coping mechanisms as part of their job trainings, to promote positive outcomes for both themselves and the people they support.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2019 · doi:10.1111/jir.12594