Waynor, William R.. The role of work related self-efficacy in supported employment for persons with serious mental illness. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T38K77CX
DescriptionThis study tested whether higher self-efficacy would predict the achievement of acompetitive employment goal in supported employment programs for persons with serious mental illness. It also examined if the experience of actually working increased self-efficacy for program participants who became employed. A total of 105 individuals with serious mental illness were recruited from five state funded SE programs in New Jersey. Participants were required to be unemployed and seeking employment to be eligible to enter the study. Research staff met with the individuals at baseline and collected demographic information and data on self-efficacy and psychiatric symptoms.For the follow-up assessments at 6-months and 12-months, data was collected on the participants, self-efficacy, psychiatric symptoms and employment activity. The study utilized a self-efficacy measure, the Work-related Self-Efficacy Scale that was designedfor persons with serious mental illness in four domains of the employment process, including: 1) vocational service access and career planning, 2) job acquisition, 3) workrelatedsocial skills, and 4) general work skills (Waghorn, Chant, & King, 2005). Results found that 38% of the participants obtained an employment goal at the 6 month interval,while 55% obtained an employment goal at the 12 month interval. However, self-efficacy was not a positive predictor of an employment outcome at either interval. Surprisingly,one of the subscales, work-related social skills self-efficacy was a negative predictor of employment at the 6 month interval. Another unexpected finding was that higher psychiatric symptoms at the 6 month interval were predictive of achieving an employment goal at the 12 month interval. Further, participants who were working at thetime of assessment at both the 6 month and 12 month interval did not have increased self-efficacy.These findings suggest that greater self-efficacy may not be a predictor of employment at the outcome level for this population. However, the findings imply that with the support of an effective supported employment program, individuals experiencing significant psychiatric symptoms can return to work.