A scoping review of stress in residential childcare workers.

This scoping review synthesizes research on stress experienced by residential childcare workers—professionals who support youth in out-of-home residential settings—and identifies gaps in the literature. Among 18 included studies, burnout was the most extensively studied stress outcome, with consistent findings linking higher burnout to factors such as neuroticism, work pressure, and lower job satisfaction, though many associations lacked replication or showed inconsistency. Other stress-related outcomes like perceived stress, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and physiological stress responses (e.g., hair cortisol levels) have been less examined, and key elements of stress models—such as stressor appraisals and coping mechanisms—remain under-researched. The review highlights the need for further replication studies, detailed exploration of appraisals and coping, and more rigorous research designs to better understand and address stress in this workforce.