Predictors of personal accomplishment among the professionals working in community mental health settings

Abstract

Background: Community mental health professionals experience personal accomplishment as a result of emotional stressors and deficiency of perceived personal accomplishment. The purpose of this study was to measure the levels of personal accomplishment, their correlation with the levels of social support and psychological disorders, and whether social support and psychological disorders can act as factors of personal accomplishment among professionals working in community mental health settings. Methods: In this cross-sectional study conducted in 2018, 80 professionals working in community mental health settings from the Association for Regional Development and Mental Health completed three scales: the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), and the subscale “Personal Accomplishment” of the scale Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure social support, psychological disorders, and personal accomplishment, respectively. The technique of convenience sampling was applied. The statistical analysis was performed via the IBM statistical package for the social sciences version 22.0. The statistical significance level was set up at 0.05. Results: The levels of personal accomplishment were low (Mean: 9.85, Standard Deviation: 5.9). No statistically significant effect of social support and psychological disorders on personal accomplishment was revealed among professionals working in community mental health settings. However, a statistically significant effect of “Social Dysfunction” (F = 4.564, p = 0.036)—as a dimension of psychological disorders—on personal accomplishment was found. Also, low correlations between Personal Accomplishment and the dimensions of GHQ-28 “Social Dysfunction” (r = 0.235, p = 0.018) and “Severe Depression” (r = 0.202, p = 0.036) were observed. Conclusions: Personal accomplishment does not seem to be influenced by social support or psychological disorders. However, social dysfunction seems to have a significant impact on personal accomplishment. Therefore, further research should be conducted in order to investigate potential buffering coping mechanisms of personal accomplishment, and in turn, burnout among mental health professionals.