Government Support, Professional Support, and Vicarious Trauma in Social Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Roles of Compassion Fatigue and Professional Identity

COVID-19 has had a profound effect on frontline social workers as well as their clients, and mitigating the risk of recurrence warrants an investigation of the individual and contextual factors associated with social workers’ experience of helper-related trauma. In this study authors explore the effects of government support and professional support on social workers’ vicarious trauma and the mediating roles of compassion fatigue and professional identity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveying 388 social workers from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, during the pandemic, indicated that professional support was indirectly related to vicarious trauma while compassion fatigue played a fully mediating role. Government support had a negative direct effect on vicarious trauma, and professional identity played a partially mediating role. However, contrary to authors’ expectations, professional identity was positively rather than negatively related to vicarious trauma. These findings suggest, first, that coping strategies for compassion fatigue should be included in professional supervision and, second, that government should provide more substantive support to effectively reduce vicarious trauma among social workers during the pandemic.