Investigating the Quality of Professional life of Mashhad Psychotherapists in 2022

The quality of professional life is an important determinant of job and patient satisfaction among psychotherapists. Low quality of professional life can lead to job burnout and compassion fatigue. However, factors related to the quality of professional life in psychotherapists have not yet been clearly evaluated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the quality of professional life of psychotherapists working in Mashhad.

This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted on psychotherapists working in Mashhad based on a convenience sampling method. The data collection tool in this study was the Demographic and occupational information questionnaire and the professional quality of life scale (ProQoL), which includes professional life satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue components. The relationship between study variables was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.

In this study, 184 psychotherapists working in Mashhad (49.5% males and 50.5% females) with mean age of 37.4±7.6 years and a work experience of 6.5±6.6 years were studied. More than half of the participants had a moderate level of compassion satisfaction. The level of job burnout and secondary stress and compassion fatigue were low in most of the participants. There was a significant and direct relationship between job burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue. There was an inverse relationship between compassion satisfaction and job burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue. The relationship between age, gender, treatment approach, and work experience with quality of life factors was not statistically significant.

The findings of the present study showed that secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue were effective factors in increasing job burnout and can be used in preventive measures.