**2. Method**

This study was based on a quantitative research method since such a method can allow the researcher to generalize the results to the wider population, in this case social workers in Iceland [36]. A questionnaire with various questions regarding their background and their work environment was used.

### **2.1 Participants**

There were 277 social workers that answered the questionnaire. The questionnaire was send to all registered social workers in the social workers' association in Iceland. The invitation to participate in this study was send by an e-mail to 596 registered social workers. However, only 555 of them were registered as working at that time. Thus, the ratio of respondents was 49.9% if those who were registered as working are seen as the population. However, it might be possible that some social workers who were not working have responded. If social workers who were not working are included as well, the response rate was 46.5%. Most of the registered social workers in the social workers' association were women, only 30 men were registered at the end of the year of 2021.

The participants were in the age range of 26–78 years old. Most participants were women, there were 264 women (95.3%) who participated in this study, 11 men (4%) and two individuals that defined their gender as other (0.7%) as can be seen in the **Table 1** below. Few individuals did not list their gender. The average age of the participants was 44.7, for the women it was 44.5, and the average age of the men was 48.5. Most of the participants were married (57%) or cohabiting (19.5%), and few had twohome relationships (1.4%). Few were divorced (7.6%), were single (9.4%), or had lost their partner (2.2%). Nearly all participants owned their home or 89.2%. Few were renting an apartment (7.6%) on the open market, and fewer were renting from a nonprofit organization or 2.2%. One to five children at various ages were living in each household. The average number of children (no age limit) living in each household was 2.6. Thus, the typical social worker was a woman in the age range of 31–40 years, was married, had two children, and lived in her own apartment or house.

#### **2.2 Measures**

The questionnaire used in this study included questions that had been developed by the author of this study. The questions included few main topics; (1) practical questions regarding their job, such as area of expertise, employment ratio, salaries, and job satisfaction; (2) questions regarding their clients and their work with their clients, such as reasons for interventions and what theories/ideology they based their work on. Also, if they thought that relevant interventions were available for their clients, (3) questions regarding stress and burnout symptoms as well as if they had received


#### **Table 1.**

*Age and gender of the social workers in Iceland.*

supervision and (4) questions regarding COVID-19 and work at home. Finally, there were questions about background variables at the end of the questionnaire, including questions about their age, gender, marital status, number of children, and housing.
