Path Analysis of Factors Related to Burnout for Campus-Based Victim Advocates

Campus-based victim advocates provide support and assistance to victims of interpersonal violence in the college context. In this study of professional campus-based victim advocates, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the direct and indirect effects of factors related to burnout. A total of 208 full-time victim advocates employed at four-year college campuses across the United States participated in an online survey in the summer of 2021. SEM analysis found that secondary traumatic stress and organizational support had significant direct effects on the level of burnout in this population. Also, organizational support served as a mediating factor between perceptions of leadership and burnout, and secondary traumatic stress served as a mediating factor between organizational support and burnout. Higher education institutions can make changes at the organizational level to address burnout of victim advocates through manageable work hours, control over workload, fair compensation, and increased sense of community investment in interpersonal violence response.