TY - JOUR
T1 - Subjective well-being among psychotherapists during the coronavirus disease pandemic
T2 - A cross-cultural survey from 12 european countries
AU - Van Hoy, Angelika
AU - Rzeszutek, Marcin
AU - Pięta, Małgorzata
AU - Mestre, Jose M.
AU - Rodríguez-Mora, Álvaro
AU - Midgley, Nick
AU - Omylinska-Thurston, Joanna
AU - Dopierala, Anna
AU - Falkenström, Fredrik
AU - Ferlin, Jennie
AU - Gergov, Vera
AU - Lazić, Milica
AU - Ulberg, Randi
AU - Røssberg, Jan Ivar
AU - Hancheva, Camellia
AU - Stoyanova, Stanislava
AU - Schmidt, Stefanie J.
AU - Podina, Ioana R.
AU - Ferreira, Nuno
AU - Kagialis, Antonios
AU - Löffler-Stastka, Henriette
AU - Gruszczyńska, Ewa
N1 - Funding Information:
In total, 2915 psychotherapists from 12 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Great Britain, Serbia, Spain, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) participated in this study. The participants completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form (I-PANAS-SF), the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support.The results highlight more individual characteristics of AWB compared to CWB, with a more critical role of low self-efficacy for the link between social support and PA rather than NA. This finding suggests the need for greater self-care among psychotherapists regarding their AWB and the more complex conditions underlying their CWB.Multilevel analysis showed that both self-efficacy and perceived social support and their interaction were not significant for CWB. By contrast, for AWB, self-efficacy and social support were independently associated with higher PA and lower NA. A moderating effect of self-efficacy on the relationship between AWB and social support was also noted for both valences. Table 2 presents these results.Further analysis of simple effects revealed slightly different patterns for PA and NA. As illustrated in Fig. 2, for self-efficacy lower than the national sample average, the relationship between perceived social support and PA was insignificant (γ = 0.002, SE = 0.004, z = 0.55, p =.58), whereas for values equal to (γ = 0.011 SE = 0.004, z = 2.75, p =.006) or higher than the average (γ = 0.0197, SE = 0.005, z = 3.72, p <.001), this relationship was positive. These findings mean that higher perceived social support was related to higher PA at higher values of self-efficacy; thus, synergistic effects of these resources were observed, but present only in individuals with sufficiently high self-efficacy relative to their national sample average. Furthermore, as simple slopes were significant outside the region described with the following bounds (−13.64; −1.69) of self-efficacy, we identified a number of participants in each country for whom there was no significant relationship between social support and PA. Table 3 presents these results. The percentage is highest for Spain (41.3%) and lowest for Bulgaria (21.66%), with a value for the whole sample equal to 30.60%.For AWB, we received partial confirmation of our last hypothesis. Namely, for both PA and NA, we found moderating effects of self-efficacy on their relationship with perceived social support in the form of a synergistic effect. In other words, a higher level of social support was positively related to AWB, but this effect was boosted by higher levels of self-efficacy (Dishman et al., 2009; Warner et al., 2011). Nevertheless, we also observed slight differences in this synergistic relationship for each valence. Namely, for PA, low self-efficacy negated the positive effect of perceived social support. Thus, if psychotherapists are low in self-efficacy within their national sample, their perception of social support is benign for PA. The likely mechanism is that such a person cannot effectively discount support from others for the maintenance of PA. Furthermore, this null effect was not equally distributed across the countries; therefore, it can be regarded as somehow country dependent. Conversely, in the case of NA, we observed a pure synergistic effect because social support was negatively related to NA at every level of self-efficacy, and this relationship was observed in all participants but with a different strength. Thus, in our study, individual self-efficacy was more critical for the association of perceived social support with PA than for NA. These results may add some new theoretical input to research on self-efficacy (Hohl et al., 2016; Shoji et al., 2016), especially in the context of its interplay with other individual resources. These results also point to the diverse mechanisms underlying the role of PA and NA in adaptation to stressful situations (Fredrickson, 2001).From a practical perspective, our findings highlight the possibility for greater effectiveness of self-care regarding the AWB of psychotherapists, which is much more dependent on intra- and external factors compared to their overall life satisfaction. Specifically, our results showed that, for AWB, self-efficacy acts synergistically with social support, with its low values undoing the positive effects of social support for PA. Thus, interventions to enhance this cognitive resource, popular in various work settings (e.g., Lloyd et al., 2017), could be tailored to this specific occupational group. In this way, our findings may add to a more in-depth discussion on the education and training of psychotherapists in the international context.This project has received funding from the New Ideas of POB V project implemented within the scope of the “Excellence Initiative - Research University” Program, by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland (number PSP: 501-D125-20-5004310).
Funding Information:
This project has received funding from the New Ideas of POB V project implemented within the scope of the “Excellence Initiative - Research University” Program, by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland (number PSP: 501-D125-20-5004310 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the amount of the total variance of the subjective well-being (SWB) of psychotherapists from 12 European countries explained by between-country vs. between-person differences regarding its cognitive (life satisfaction) and affective components (positive affect [PA] and negative affect [NA]). Second, we explored a link between the SWB and their personal (self-efficacy) and social resources (social support) after controlling for sociodemographics, work characteristics, and COVID-19-related distress. Methods: In total, 2915 psychotherapists from 12 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Great Britain, Serbia, Spain, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) participated in this study. The participants completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form (I-PANAS- SF), the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Results: Cognitive well-being (CWB; satisfaction with life) was a more country-dependent component of SWB than affective well-being (AWB). Consequently, at the individual level, significant correlates were found only for AWB but not for CWB. Higher AWB was linked to being female, older age, higher weekly workload, and lower COVID-19-related distress. Self-efficacy and social support explained AWB only, including their main effects and the moderating effect of self-efficacy. Conclusions: The results highlight more individual characteristics of AWB compared to CWB, with a more critical role of low self-efficacy for the link between social support and PA rather than NA. This finding suggests the need for greater self-care among psychotherapists regarding their AWB and the more complex conditions underlying their CWB.
AB - Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the amount of the total variance of the subjective well-being (SWB) of psychotherapists from 12 European countries explained by between-country vs. between-person differences regarding its cognitive (life satisfaction) and affective components (positive affect [PA] and negative affect [NA]). Second, we explored a link between the SWB and their personal (self-efficacy) and social resources (social support) after controlling for sociodemographics, work characteristics, and COVID-19-related distress. Methods: In total, 2915 psychotherapists from 12 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Great Britain, Serbia, Spain, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) participated in this study. The participants completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form (I-PANAS- SF), the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Results: Cognitive well-being (CWB; satisfaction with life) was a more country-dependent component of SWB than affective well-being (AWB). Consequently, at the individual level, significant correlates were found only for AWB but not for CWB. Higher AWB was linked to being female, older age, higher weekly workload, and lower COVID-19-related distress. Self-efficacy and social support explained AWB only, including their main effects and the moderating effect of self-efficacy. Conclusions: The results highlight more individual characteristics of AWB compared to CWB, with a more critical role of low self-efficacy for the link between social support and PA rather than NA. This finding suggests the need for greater self-care among psychotherapists regarding their AWB and the more complex conditions underlying their CWB.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Cross-cultural comparison
KW - Perceived social support
KW - Psychotherapist
KW - Self-efficacy
KW - Well-being
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136680763&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.07.065
DO - 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.07.065
M3 - Article
C2 - 35994913
AN - SCOPUS:85136680763
SN - 0022-3956
VL - 154
SP - 315
EP - 323
JO - Journal of Psychiatric Research
JF - Journal of Psychiatric Research
ER -
