The contribution of personal and professional characteristics to the professional quality of life among volunteers in rape crises centers in Israel

In Israel, there are nine rape crisis centers for women and men who were victims of sexual assault: Galil-Golan, Nazareth, Haifa and the North, the Sharon area, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Tahel – Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children, Ta’ir in the Coastal Plain and Maslan in the South. The crisis center in Tel-Aviv also operates a hotline for male youths and men who were victims of sexual assault and a hotline for religious and ultraorthodox male youths and men. The crisis services are given by the centers through over 800 male and female volunteers, who do not receive any payment, 24/7, all year round. The role of the volunteers is to afford direct and indirect assistance for victims of sexual assault and their families, through phone conversations and personal meetings (The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, 2015). It is known that volunteers who offer help to victims of sexual assault report on a stressful psychological environment and sometimes even experience secondary traumatization (Hellman & House, 2006).

The goal of the present study was to investigate the manner in which volunteering in crisis center hotlines predicts the volunteer’s professional quality of life, focusing on positive and negative aspects related to volunteering. The research examined the contribution of personal and professional variables, such as gender, age, traumatic life experiences, workload, professional seniority, to both components of compassion fatigue: secondary traumatization and burnout (negative aspects) and compassion satisfaction (positive aspect) according to Stamm’s (2010) model. Variables which the scientific literature indicated as having a potential to moderate the relation between the predictors of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction were also investigated: self -differentiation (personality resource), professional self-esteem (professional resource), and supervision (environmental resource).

The research participants included 37 male volunteers and 98 female volunteers (N=135) from the various crisis centers across the country. The participants answered six questionnaires: the Professional Quality of Life Scale (Stamm, 2002), the Burnout Measure (Malach-Pines, 2005) (dependent variables); the Impact of Event Scale (Solomon, 1995) and socio-demographic variables (independent variables); the Level of Self-Differentiation Scale (Haber, 1984), the Professional Self-esteem Scale (Carmel, 1997) and a report on supervision (moderator variables).

The research findings indicate that a lower level of compassion fatigue and a higher level of compassion satisfaction were reported among the volunteers compared to other studies. Secondary traumatization was explained by a younger age, personal and family traumatic life events and a low level of self-differentiation. No differences in the level of secondary traumatization were found between men and women.

Burnout was predicted by a younger age, personal traumatic life events, and a low level of self-differentiation and low professional self-esteem. Men reported on burnout more than women. The age X supervision interaction indicated that receiving supervision at an older age moderates burnout, while receiving supervision at a young age increases burnout.

Compassion satisfaction was explained by a higher age, greater volunteering workload, higher levels of self-differentiation and professional self-esteem. No differences in the level of compassion satisfaction were found between men and women. The interactions included workload (number of phone calls) X professional self-esteem; workload (number of shifts) X self-differentiation. Analysis of the interactions demonstrated that high professional self-esteem and high self-differentiation increased compassion satisfaction among those who had a higher workload.

The discussion shows that similarly to previous research, the moderator variables self-differentiation, professional self-esteem and supervision moderated the relations with the dependent variables also among the volunteers in the present study. The variable self-differentiation increased satisfaction among those who have a greater workload in the volunteering work. The variable professional self-esteem increased satisfaction among those with a greater workload. The variable supervision moderated burnout among the older age group of volunteers. It appears that self-differentiation assists in establishing beneficial and empathic help with boundaries and in distinguishing between the personal domain and the difficult feelings and emotions which arise during a hotline phone conversation. Professional self-esteem was found to help the volunteer focus on the client without stress and even to appreciate and enjoy his or her successes. Furthermore, volunteers with a higher workload, which includes a large number of hotline calls and numerous shifts, feel that their volunteering is meaningful and contributing and even feel greater satisfaction.

The importance of the present study is in that it sheds light on the professional quality of life among volunteers in crisis centers for victims of sexual assault, as well as on the positive and negative aspects of this type of volunteering. The research also indicates several variables that may contribute to decreasing the secondary traumatization and burnout among this population, and increasing satisfaction from the volunteer work on the crisis center hotlines. The research findings bring forth the implications of the encounter with the difficult contents of victims of sexual trauma among the volunteers community. Our findings can comprise the basis for intervention programs for support and empowerment of volunteers can be derived, according to their needs.