Resilience among school psychologists: Applying positive psychology to burnout prevention

This cross-sectional survey research was designed to examine personality and environmental variables associated with occupational resilience among school psychologist practitioners. Data were collected via mail surveys that included a cover letter, a demographic/occupational variables questionnaire, a stress inventory, a personality inventory, and a burnout inventory. Surveys were mailed to 350 school psychologists selected randomly from the NASP membership directory. The response rate was 56%.; Occupational resilience was defined as the experience of high stress and low burnout levels. Logistic regression analyses indicated personality and demographic variables were significant predictors of resilience: resilience was positively correlated with agreeableness and openness to experience and negatively correlated with neuroticism. Years of experience was also found to be positively related to resilience. No significant relationships were found between resilience and occupational variables. Overall, findings suggest personality variables contribute to resilience above and beyond environmental variables.