Impact of Workplace Environment on Peer and Non-Peer Mental Health Providers
Thomas Fisher & Kim Weikel, Ph.D
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology
Abstract: The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) were completed by mental health workers serving four counties in Pennsylvania. Among
providers with their own lived experience, referred to as peer-workers, there were significant associations between levels of burnout and both sense of community and sense of control as
measured by the community and control subscales of the AWS. These associations were not found among non-peer providers.

Introduction

Method

Discussion

• Peer providers are mental health workers with diagnosed
mental illness who use their personal experience with
mental illness to help their peers (Chinman et al. 2017;
Mowbray et al. 1996).

Seventy-three front-line mental health workers, employed by
mental health agencies serving four counties in Pennsylvania,
completed a large on-line survey assessing workplace wellbeing, including rates of burnout (measured by the Maslach
Burnout Inventory) and person-job congruency (measured by
the AWS). Twenty-six participants identified as peers.

• The findings of this study suggest that the workplace
factors predicting burnout among mental health
employees may differ between peer and non-peer
workers.

• Job-related burnout, a three-dimensional experience
involving emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and
reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach, Jackson, &
Leiter, 2016), is found to be common among those in the
mental health field due to the nature and gravity of their
work (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993).

• Leiter and Maslach (2000) argue that work atmosphere is an
important predictor of burnout, and they developed the
Areas of Work Life Scale (AWS) to measure congruency
between employees’ work lives and their personal
expectations regarding their work experience (Leiter &
Maslach, 2000).
• Firmin, Mao, Bellamy, and Davidson (2018) found that
among a sample of 65 peer support specialists, 78 percent
had experienced microaggressions within the workplace at
least once related to their peer support status, and 38 percent
reported experiencing a microaggression at least once a day.
• This project was completed to investigate whether certain
aspects of the work environment (particularly those
measured by the AWS scales of Community and Values,
given possible experiences of workplace microaagressions)
may be more closely related to the burnout experience for
peer providers compared to their non-peer counterparts.

Results
•

Independent samples t-tests indicated no significant
differences between the peer and non-peer workers on
any of the AWS subscales, p >.10.

• The association between sense of community and
emotional exhaustion/burnout, r (21) = -.598, p < .01, was
significant and moderately strong among the peer
providers. The association between community and
burnout among the non-peer providers was lower and not
statistically significant, r (38) = -.260, p = .115.
• The association between workplace values and burnout
was the same for the peer, r (21) = -.261, p = .253, and
non-peer, r (39) = -.261, p = .109, providers.
• The association between workplace control and burnout
was moderately strong and statistically significant among
the peer providers, r (20) = -.622, p = .003, but weak and
not statistically significant, r (39) = -.154, p = .350 among
the other providers.

• The relationships peer providers have with their coworkers may have crucial impacts on their personal
and professional well-being.
• The stronger association between disappointing
workplace community and burnout may be linked
to the increased experience of microaggressions in
the workplace.
• The significant association between control and
burnout among peer workers, although not
hypothesized, may be similarly associated with the
professional relationships peers have with their
non-peer co-workers as a result of a tendency for
non-peer workers to not trust the judgment of peerproviders.
• Replication of the findings with a larger sample size
will be important, as the findings suggest that
workplace interventions for reducing burnout may
need to be more focused on sense of community and
control for peer providers.

References
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Chinman, M., Mcinnes, D. K., Eisen, S., Ellison, M., Farkas, M., Armstrong, M., &
Resnick, S. G. (2017). Establishing a research agenda for understanding the role
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Cordes, C., & Dougherty, T. (1993). A review and integration of research on job
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Firmin, R.L., Mao, S., Bellamy, C.D., & Davidson, L. (2018). Peer support specialists’
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Maslach, C., Jackson, S.E., & Leiter, M.P. (2016). Maslach burnout inventory:
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Mowbray, C. T., Moxley, D. P., Thrasher, S., Bybee, D., & Harris, S. (1996).
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