A Group Study On Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Therapy To Alleviate Burnout In Elderly Volunteers In The Community

With the advancement of the construction of township(street)social work stations,the construction of social work stations provides an important way for the elderly in the community to participate in volunteer services,and more and more retired elderly people become volunteers through the social work station platform to participate in community services.The elderly in the city are better than the elderly in rural areas in terms of education level,health level and economic conditions,and most of the elderly after urban retirement still feel that they can still exert their residual heat and continue to contribute to society,but at present,China’s elderly volunteer service is still in the development stage,there are many problems.Elderly volunteers are prone to symptoms similar to burnout after long-term volunteer service,which will cause elderly volunteers to appear physically and mentally exhausted,indifferent and alienated,low sense of achievement,etc.,which will affect the physical and mental health of elderly volunteers in the long run,resulting in the loss of community volunteers and not conducive to the construction and development of social work stations.Under this circumstance,it is imperative to intervene in the alleviation of burnout in elderly volunteers with practical research and explore effective strategies for alleviating burnout in volunteers.In addition,the study will help give full play to the professional advantages of social work,promote the construction of social work stations,and localize the practice of social work.In this paper,elderly volunteers in the L community of Pingxiang City were taken as the research objects,and the L social work station and its communities were investigated by participatory observation,questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview,and the intervention targets were screened.By combing through domestic and foreign literature,combining the interview situation and the needs of the client,mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy was selected as the theoretical guidance for intervention,six group activities were designed,and a mindfulness practice plan was formulated to help elderly volunteers recognize burnout,improve their role identification with volunteers,enhance their emotional regulation ability and establish a good connection with others.The preliminary survey showed that elderly volunteers in the L community generally had different degrees of burnout,which were mainly manifested in emotional exhaustion,improper attitude towards volunteer service,dissatisfaction with social workers,and reduced personal sense of achievement.The author analyzes the causes of burnout in elderly volunteers from the individual level,social work service station level and community level.Process evaluation and outcome evaluation showed that mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy had an effect on the alleviation of burnout in elderly volunteers.Finally,this study reflects on the theoretical application,practical skills and role of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy in the intervention of burnout in elderly volunteers,and proposes to expand the research target group,pay attention to the personality characteristics of the individual research subjects,pay attention to the negative reactions that may be caused by the intervention of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy,choose the healing method according to the needs and physical and mental characteristics of the elderly group,and establish a long-term intervention mechanism in view of the shortcomings in the practical intervention.To explore more possibilities for interdisciplinary applied research in social work and psychology.