ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Anxiety and Stress Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1543681
Impact of Occupational Death Trauma on Burnout Among Mental Health Professionals: The Mediating Role of Secondary Traumatic Stress
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, North Jeolla, Republic of Korea
- 2Seoul Cyber University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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In response to growing evidence regarding the psychological burden of client deaths on mental health professionals (MHPs), this study investigates how occupational death trauma influences burnout, particularly through the mediating role of secondary traumatic stress (STS). A structured online survey was administered to 224 MHPs working at mental health welfare centers across South Korea in June 2024. Multiple regression analysis and mediation analysis were performed using bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples in Stata/MP 18.0. Greater exposure to occupational death trauma was significantly associated with higher levels of burnout among MHPs (β = .515, p < .001). Occupational death trauma exerted a significant direct effect on burnout, and STS was found to partially mediate this relationship (β = .277, p < .001). Specifically, increased exposure to occupational death trauma elevated STS, which in turn intensified burnout among MHPs. These findings underscore both direct and indirect pathways through which occupational death trauma contributes to burnout, emphasizing the need for structured psychological interventions within the mental health workforce.
Keywords: Occupational Death Trauma, Mental health professionals, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, vicarious trauma
Received: 11 Dec 2024; Accepted: 12 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Park, Go, Cho and Yoon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Myeong-Sook Yoon, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, 561-756, North Jeolla, Republic of Korea
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