The Experiences of Humanitarian Aid Workers in Serbia: Testing the Impact of Organisational Support on Mental Health Outcomes

Abstract

This study analysed the issue of mental health of humanitarian aid workers in Serbia. It explored the prevalence of secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout as negative mental health outcomes and posttraumatic growth (PTG) as positive mental health outcome. In addition, it analysed the relevance of three organisational factors, perceived organisational support (POS), perceived supervisor support (PSS) and team support (TS). A total of 61 participants took part in the study. The results showed that 34.4% of the participants demonstrated a high level of STS and 27.9% a high level of burnout. Also, 46.4% of the participant reported increased PTG. The analysis showed that POS, PSS and TS were negatively correlated with STS; POS and TS were negatively correlated with burnout. There were no relevant correlations between PTG and other variables. Thus, the research identified organisational factors as important protection and preventive mechanisms against negative mental health outcomes. Key words: mental health, humanitarian aid workers, organisational support theory, supervisor support, team support, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, posttraumatic growth