Experienced Social Support and Cultural Humility for Faith-Based Cross-Cultural Workers During COVID-19

Abstract

Employees of faith-based international organizations have been shown to be uniquely at risk for mental health symptoms, including depression and posttraumatic stress, while social support has been demonstrated to be an important protective factor. Cultural humility, which is understood as an openness to appreciate and learn from others, has also been shown to contribute to wellbeing for cross-cultural employees. Eighty-eight cross-cultural faith-based workers completed the Hopkins Symptom Checklist, Social Provisions Scale, and Cultural Humility Scale as a part of a larger needs assessment conducted in late 2020 during the global COVID-19 pandemic. It was hypothesized that social support would relate inversely to mental health symptoms, and that cultural humility would moderate the relationship between support and symptoms. Path analysis confirmed this hypothesis. When participants reported moderate to high levels of cultural humility, there was a strengthened relationship between social support and lower mental health symptoms. Thus, cultural humility appears to activate the relationship between social support and reduced mental health symptoms. International organizations can contribute to employee resilience in traumatic contexts by promoting both cultural humility and social support.