Cher, Jing En, Barlas, Joanna, Hennessy, Maria, Ramsay, Jonathan E., and Aw, Sherry (2025) Staying motivated by anchoring on values: a mixed methods study on the workplace well-being and addiction beliefs of substance use professionals in Singapore. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 20. 54.

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Abstract

Purpose: Professionals providing substance use treatment services often report poor workplace well-being. Moreover, professionals’ beliefs about addiction may influence their view of clients, treatment delivery and their wellbeing at work. Most research has been undertaken in Western countries, hence this study investigated workplace well-being and addiction beliefs of substance use (SU) professionals in Singapore.

Methods: A mixed-methods design was employed. Fifteen participants completed questionnaires related to their well-being at work and addiction beliefs, before participating in a semi-structured interview. Results: Descriptive analyses revealed that most participants experienced a moderate level of satisfaction with their work and moderate burnout. Reflexive thematic analysis generated four themes: (1) deriving and maintaining meaningfulness; (2) clarity of role and support for effective performance; (3) holding a multidimensional and nuanced view of addiction promotes satisfaction and motivation; and (4) navigating systemic challenges. Workplace well-being was negatively impacted by perceptions of organisational and systemic challenges.

Conclusions: SU professionals derived satisfaction and stayed motivated by crafting their work to re-align with their personal values and beliefs, finding role-clarity, adopting a multidimensional and flexible model of addiction and having external support. Implications highlight the role that organisational training, supervision and career development can play in supporting SU professionals.

Item ID:	90309
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1747-597X
Keywords:	Well-being, Job satisfaction, Job crafting, Substance use, Addiction beliefs
Related URLs:	https://link.springer.com/article/10.118...
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	20 Jan 2026 01:10
FoR Codes:	52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5203 Clinical and health psychology > 520302 Clinical psychology @ 50% 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5201 Applied and developmental psychology > 520104 Industrial and organisational psychology (incl. human factors) @ 50%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200409 Mental health @ 70% 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200507 Occupational health @ 30%
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