This study was to examine the impact of the job stress of public social
workers on their burn-out and the moderating effects of their job-stress coping
style on the relationship between job stress and burnout. The number of
subjects were 1,743 which accounted for 10% of total 17,426 public social
workers in the country. A survey was conducted by mail or e-mail, and the
data from 1,542 respondents were analyzed.
The job stress of the public social workers had statistically significant effect
on their burn-out. Problem-focused coping, social support seeking, and wishful
thinking seeking strategy among four moderating variables were also turned out
to have statistically significant effects on burn-out. The interaction between job
stress and wishful thinking seeking strategy had a statistically significant effect
on burn-out. It was found that, to relieve the burn-out from job stress of
public social workers, the application of job-stress coping strategy is important
to ensure the superb quality of social welfare services.