Date of Conferral

4-24-2026

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Jerrod Brown

Abstract

Adult Protective Services (APS) workers play a crucial role in providing care, support, and services to older and adult clients with special needs. There was a lack of empirical data on the long-term retention of APS investigators and on how burnout affects their intentions to resign. Departments consistently rely on a cycle of using newer, less experienced investigators who may not know about community and state services or department policies and procedures to connect clients. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between personal, work-related, and client-related burnout and APS investigators’ intention to resign. Data were collected from two APS agencies in the western United States via an anonymous, web-based survey. Guided by the job demand-resources model, burnout was operationalized through the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, and turnover intention was operationalized through the 15-Item Turnover Intention Scale. The final analytic sample included 41 completed surveys. Analysis indicated that the three burnout dimensions were strongly and positively interrelated. Higher personal burnout was associated with higher work-related and client-related burnout, and work-related burnout demonstrated a strong association with client-related burnout. However, the central outcome of interest, turnover intention, did not show statistically significant associations with any burnout dimension at the bivariate level, suggesting that higher burnout scores were not associated with increased turnover intention. Findings may promote positive social change by informing leaders in APS and the agency administration about the relationship between personal, work-related, and client-related burnout and investigators’ intent to resign.

Download

Share

 
COinS