Loneliness at work and psychological capital of professionals in the field of mental health

In this thesis, it is aimed to examine loneliness and psychological capital of psychiatrists, psychologists/clinical psychologists and psychological counselors working in the field of mental health. Loneliness in business life, unlike general loneliness, is a type of loneliness encountered only in working life and has two sub-dimensions: emotional deprivation and social friendship. Psychological capital is a concept that provides information about who the individual is basically and who he or she can be in terms of positive development. Psychological capital, which is a set of features that can be changed and improved with experience and education, has four sub-dimensions consisting of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and psychological resilience. The sample of the study consists of 129 mental health professionals and 107 non-mental health professionals, 236 people in total. Demographic Information Form, Loneliness at Work Scale and Psychological Capital scale were used as data collection tools. Research data was collected through Google Forms and it took 10 minutes for each participant to collect the data. Participants from all regions of Turkey participated in the research. In this scientific study, The loneliness scores of mental health professionals were not significantly different from those working outside the field of mental health (p>0.05); psychological capital total score averages were found to be significantly lower (p<0.05). In addition, sub-dimensions of psychological capital; hope and self-efficacy scores were also found to be lower in mental health professionals compared to those who did not (p<0.05). A negative significant relationship was found between the total mean scores of mental health professionals' loneliness at work and psychological capital scales (r=-17; p<0.05). A moderate, negative and significant relationship was found between the emotional deprivation sub-dimension of loneliness at work and psychological capital (r:- .44; p<0.01); A weak, positive and significant relationship was found between social friendship sub-dimension and psychological capital (r= .35; p<0.01). Each of the sub-dimensions of psychological capital was negatively associated with emotional deprivation and positively associated with social friendship (p<0.01). A negative correlation was found between the optimism sub-dimension of psychological capital and the total mean score of loneliness in business life (r= -19; p<0.05). There was no significant difference between the occupational and business life loneliness and psychological capital levels of mental health professionals (p<0.05). According to the sectors they work, mental health workers working in the public sector were found to have higher levels of loneliness in business life than mental health professionals working in other sectors (p<0.05). According to the work experience period of mental health professionals, the average psychological capital scores of those working for more than 20 years were found to be higher than those with 0-5 years of work experience (p<0.05). It is seen that this result is the proof of the feature of psychological capital that can develop with experience. Research data were discussed within the framework of the relevant literature, and various suggestions were made for future research and in line with the results.