Assessing Occupational Stress in Residential Youth Care Settings: Validation of the Stress Questionnaire for Residential Youth Care Professionals

Abstract

Occupational stress is commonly experienced by professional caregivers working in Residential Youth Care (RYC), due to the psychological demands of their work. Although the influence of stress has been studied on this helping profession, there is still no measurement tool to assess the potential sources of stress for these professionals. This study aimed to validate the Stress Questionnaire for Residential Youth Care Professionals (Stress- RYCaregivers), a self-report questionnaire assessing different sources of occupational stress experienced by RYC profes-sionals. Dimensionality and psychometric properties were inves-tigated using a sample of 360 professional caregivers (88.6% female) working in 41 residential care facilities. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the 25 items grouped into six factors (i.e., Caring of Children and Young People, Work over-load, Career progression and salary, Relationships at work, Training activities, and Home-work interface). All subscales showed adequate internal consistency and test–retest reliabil-ity. Construct validity in relation to external variables was also found. Significant differences in stress sources were found con-cerning personal and work variables. Understanding the causes of stress is the first step to prevent it, which may impact in the caregivers’ quality of life, in the care provided, and, ultimately, in the quality of life of children in RYC.