| Abstract [eng] |
SUMMARY Background. Professional burnout syndrome is a critical issue in the social care sector, driven by high emotional demands and a lack of organizational support. Traditional prevention measures often fail to address employees’ deep emotional burdens, prompting a shift toward experience-oriented methods. While arts therapies are globally recognized for improving psycho-emotional health, empirical research on drama therapy for preventing burnout risk among social workers in Lithuania is practically non-existent. Objective: to reveal the experiences of social care sector workers during a drama therapy intervention process and evaluate its impact on professional burnout indicators. Methods: an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was applied. The quantitative phase used a one-group pre-post design (ten participants) utilizing the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. The intervention was an eight-week drama therapy program integrating embodiment, role exploration, and action sociometry. The qualitative phase involved six participants through semi-structured interviews, analyzed via inductive thematic analysis. Quantitative data were evaluated using the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Both phases were integrated to explain quantitative trends through subjective experiences. Results. Quantitative findings revealed a positive trend of decreasing burnout indicators. The overall burnout score decreased from 42.1 to 38.8 points. The largest change occurred in the client-related burnout domain, showing a decrease of 5.8 points (indicating a medium size effect). Due to the small pilot sample, differences were not statistically significant; however, the observed medium effect size and high subjective evaluation demonstrate practical utility. Qualitatively, drama therapy provided a unique space to visualize suppressed emotional fatigue and safely identify systemic organizational dysfunctions (e.g., mobbing) via concretization, dramatic projection, and aesthetic distance. Group dynamics reduced professional isolation and fostered peer support. The paradox of managerial helplessness was revealed, and role reversal allowed participants to safely deconstruct this. The intervention enabled a shift from theoretical knowledge to embodied experience, expanding participants' role repertoire, boundaries, and self-compassion. Conclusions. Drama therapy is an impactful intervention mitigating burnout risk among social care workers. By reducing professional isolation, expanding role repertoire, and enhancing cognitive flexibility, it alleviates emotional exhaustion and serves as a tool for collective awareness and self-care. This pilot study substantiates the feasibility of integrating drama therapy into burnout prevention and supervision structures; however, further studies with larger sample sizes are required to definitively confirm this effect. Keywords: drama therapy, professional burnout syndrome, burnout risk, social workers, prevention, mobbing. |
