장애아동 치료사의 성공 및 실패 귀인과 소진의 관계

초록

Therapists serving children with disabilities are repeatedly exposed to high emotional demands and uncertain treatment outcomes; therefore, the way they interpret these experiences may be an important factor in understanding burnout. However, prior studies have primarily focused on job-related environmental factors such as workload, organizational support, and working conditions, while relatively little attention has been paid to therapists’ cognitive interpretations. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cognitive interpretations of success and failure experiences and burnout. The participants were 200 therapists (190 women) working at treatment centers for children with disabilities. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships among personal background variables, specific attribution factors, and burnout. First, burnout was lower among therapists who were older, had higher levels of education, and conducted more sessions per week. Differences in burnout were also found according to treatment area and job characteristics. Second, in success situations, effort attributions were associated with lower burnout, whereas ability attributions were associated with higher burnout. Third, in failure situations, ability, task difficulty, and luck attributions were all positively related to burnout. In particular, higher levels of burnout were found among therapists who attributed failure to uncontrollable or stable causes. This finding suggests that perceiving treatment outcomes as difficult to control may reduce psychological control and increase emotional exhaustion. In addition, the model including failure attributions showed greater explanatory power, suggesting that cognitive interpretations of failure experiences are more closely related to burnout than interpretations of success experiences. Overall, burnout among therapists working with children with disabilities was related not only to work environment factors but also to the way they cognitively interpreted success and failure experiences. In particular, the tendency to attribute failure to uncontrollable and stable causes was identified as a risk factor for burnout. These findings highlight the importance of educational approaches that support the development of adaptive attribution patterns in the training and professional development of special education and disability-support professionals. Ultimately, such efforts may contribute to maintaining therapists’ professional competence and enhancing the effectiveness of educational and therapeutic interventions for children with disabilities.

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