Analysis of Resilience and Mindfulness in Human Service Professionals

This assignment involves a critical analysis of resilience and mindfulness as variables that can aid human service professionals in managing stress. The researcher employs quantitative methods to analyze the effectiveness of these factors. However, they face challenges such as limited data availability and difficulties in accessing participants due to their professional nature. Despite these barriers, the study concludes that resilience and mindfulness are essential for human service professionals to manage stress effectively.

CRITICAL APPRAISAL
(Exploring resilience and mindfulness as preventative factors for psychological
distress burnout and secondary traumatic stress among human service
professionals)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART A...........................................................................................................................................1
Authorship..............................................................................................................................1
Research questions.................................................................................................................2
Research design......................................................................................................................2
Research methods...................................................................................................................3
Results and findings...............................................................................................................3
PART B............................................................................................................................................3
Barriers to the application......................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Human service professionals continuously work for welfare of people those who are not
getting support from society and family. In the recent time, people are suffering from burnout
and secondary traumatic stress. Mindfulness is the major psychological factor that can help in
managing stress of human service professionals (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP.
631-637). Present study will critically analyse the article “Exploring resilience and mindfulness
as preventative factors for psychological distress burnout and secondary traumatic stress among
human service professionals”. It will explain strength and weakness of the study. Furthermore, it
will discuss factors that influence use of evidence in practice.
PART A
Authorship
Rachel Harker has appropriate knowledge about this field, she has completed her Masters
of Psychology from recognised university. She is working as professional clinical psychologist.
She is clinical psychologist at head space Camperdown. Aileen M. Pidgeon is Assistant
Professor and faculty of Society and Design in Bond University. She teaches psychotherapies
and psychopathology. She has completed her Doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from
University of Queensland (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637). Frances
Klaassen is another author of this research paper. She provides counselling at Mercy community
services SEQ Ltd. Researchers are qualified enough and have relevant experience of long years
in the psychological field. Thus, authors have implemented their experience for conducting
research on the topic in effective manner.
All these authors are associated with the academic institutions. Thus, NSF has provided
funds for conducting this study. They are affiliated with the recognised universities.
Authors are carrying out the research on their interest field. The main conflict of interest in this
study was time (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637). Authors were having
limited period of time, psychology is the vast field and in such short duration, it is very difficult
to complete this research. Retaining outside funding was another conflict of interest in this
research paper.
The article was published on 7th August 2015. Findings of this study are relevant with the
research objectives.
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Research questions
Aim of this study was to develop understanding regarding relationship between
resilience, mindfulness, burnout, secondary traumatic stress and psychological distress among
human service professionals (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637).
Research questions of this paper are to identify relationship between resilience,
mindfulness and secondary traumatic stress. Another research question of this article is to find
out impact of these elements of health service professionals.
For carrying out this study in effective manner researcher has hypothesised high level of
mindfulness and resilience to significantly predict level of burnout and stress.
In order to complete this study, scholars have described concepts of mindfulness, burnout
and secondary traumatic stress. Relationship between all these variables has been described in
this article (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637).
Background of this research paper explains that human service professional those who
provide intervention to vulnerable people are routinely unproductive towards their work. It is
very important to promote psychological well-being and implement service standards so that
stress level can be minimised.
The gap in this study was warrant consideration. As the result of the study shows that
resilience is unique variance that can help in minimising stress but it has failed to explain
whether human service professionals those who have reported low level stress do as a result of
high level resilience.
The study was needed because stress and emotional issues in the lives of human service
professionals have been increased to great extent. In such condition, they are unable to
concentrate more on vulnerable people. This impacts on well-being of these people. If stress
level of human service professional have been minimised, then they would be able to provide
quality care to these people (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637). Thus,
this study was needed for balancing life of professionals and resolving their psychological stress.
Research design
It is the primary study, scholar has involved human participants those who have
knowledge about this field and can share their views in order to identify factors of preventing
professional from stress. With the assistance of primary resources, researchers have become able
to gather first-hand information and real facts about topic.
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Author has applied cross sectional correlational design. This design has helped the
investigator in analysing data from population (Morse, 2015, pp 1212-1222). In this design,
researcher has to employ many demographic variables such as age, gender, income etc. It has
helped in proving or disproving assumptions. This design has supported in capturing specific
point in time. Outcome of the research are helpful in creating new theory.
Cross sectional correlational design is suitable to answer the research questions. It is cost
effective design and can be performed easily. In this design, data can be used for various
research types (Bryman, 2016).
Research methods
In order to complete this research in an effective manner, researchers have applied
various methods. Individuals have used deductive research approach. This has supported in
formulating hypotheses and testing these hypotheses. Furthermore, it has applied quantitative
research method. This quantitative method has supported in involving statistical calculations in
order to find out level of impact of mindfulness on stress among health service professionals.
Involvement of correlational analysis, hierarchical analysis tests have been applied in this
research so that valid output can be generated (Denzin and Giardina, 2016, pp. 9-38).
Researchers have involved 133 human service professionals those who have great
experience in this field. Involvement of these human respondents is appropriate. They have
relevant experience in psychological field thus, they can give in-depth detail about the topic.
Results and findings
From the research, it is found that resilience and mindfulness are two major variables that
can support in dealing with stress, burnout, traumatic stress etc. Both these variables contribute
well in reducing negative psychological outcomes. By this way, health service professional can
feel relax and they can concentrate more on their duties. This helps in minimising their emotional
issues and giving them strength so that they can provide quality care to the vulnerable people in
society.
PART B
Barriers to the application
There are various barriers for the application of evidence in practice. Major barriers are
size and complexity of research. Human psychology is the vast topic and it is very complicated
too. In such type of topic, scholar has to pay extra attention on data collection. Individual needs
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to involve such details that can support in answering research questions. Another barrier to this
study was poor access to the evidence. There are many sites that require access permission from
concern people (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen and King, 2016, PP. 631-637). But authors were not
having access of some sites which has created issue for the researcher in conducting research. It
is the topic on which fewer researchers have conducted their studies. Thus, there are limited data
available. In such condition, scholars were required to utilise their studies and experience in an
effective manner so that research questions can be answered appropriately. The research is based
on individual clinical expertise. Researcher had to involve such participants those who have
experience of this field. It was complicated to involve such people in the study because they are
highly professional and do not disclose information with any person (Harker, Pidgeon, Klaassen
and King, 2016, PP. 631-637). Lack of guidelines was another barrier to this research.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it can be articulated that critical analysis of any article is
considered as the most complex task. For analysing this article, scholar has to look at the
methods applied in this study and strength and weakness of these tools. In the present study,
quantitative method has been applied. This has helped in finding accurate results and answering
research questions. Moreover, it has been concluded that resilience and mindfulness are two
major variables that can support in resolving stress of human service professionals.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods. Oxford university press.
Denzin, N. K. & Giardina, M. D. (2016). Introduction. In Qualitative Inquiry—Past, Present, and
Future (pp. 9-38). Routledge.
Harker, R., Pidgeon, A., Klaassen, F., & King, S. (2016). Exploring resilience and mindfulness as
preventative factors for psychological distress burnout and secondary traumatic stress
among human service professional. Work. 54(3). 631-637.
Morse, J. M. (2015). Critical analysis of strategies for determining rigor in qualitative inquiry.
Qualitative health research. 25(9). 1212-1222.
Smith, J. A. (2015). Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
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