The Role of Effective Interprofessional Collaboration in Social Worker Burnout in a Northeastern Veterans Affairs Medical Center: Implications for Social Work Education

This preliminary study explored effective interprofessional collaboration’s role on social worker burnout within a single Veterans Affairs medical center. Twenty-one social workers completed a survey to collect data on burnout, effective interprofessional collaboration components, and demographic characteristics. On average, social workers reported moderately low burnout levels. As collective ownership of goals increased, burnout decreased. Similarly, as reflection on interprofessional team processes increased, burnout decreased. Future research would benefit from a large, randomly-sampled group of social work participants across multiple sectors to develop implications for social work education. Including measures of person, client, and work characteristics that have been previously associated with burnout would also be beneficial.