Screening for secondary traumatic stress (STS) is lacking in China. It is unclear whether Western models of STS can be adapted satisfactorily for use in non-Western regions. The 20-item Secondary ...Trauma Questionnaire (STQ) is a self-report measure of traumatic stress symptoms in individuals who have been influenced indirectly by suicide or violent injury of people important to the respondents.
Here, we assessed the psychometric properties of a newly developed Chinese version of the STQ in a potentially traumatized sample (
= 875) composed of doctors, nurses, teachers, civic administration staff, and social workers in China. We performed reliability and validity analyses. Subsequently, we split the total sample into two subsamples for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for measurement invariance analyses.
The full scale demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.95-0.97), convergent validity, discriminant validity, and factorial validity. CFA affirmed a one-factor structure; the configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariances of the STQ were acceptable across genders.
The present results indicate that the STQ is a reliable and valid self-report assessment for use with potentially traumatized people in China, and further supports the notion that the STQ is amenable to additional future cross-cultural adaptation.
Workers who are exposed to severe situations such as death, harassment, and others' suffering at work are vulnerable to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe distress. This ...distress may extend to their intimate partners, despite their lack of firsthand experience with the traumatic stressors. Although theory and empirical research suggest that employees' traumatic distress can transmit to their partners, the magnitude of these effects and when, how, and why intimate partners develop secondary traumatic symptoms and distress are not as clear. Drawing from crossover theory as an organizing framework (Westman, 2001), our meta-analysis of 276 articles indicates that the relationship between employee PTSD/distress and spouse PTSD/distress is as strong as the relationship between employee trauma exposure and employee PTSD/distress (ρ = .26), suggesting that workers' PTSD/distress is as distressing for partners as the traumatic stressors are for workers encountering them firsthand. Our moderation tests further revealed that the trauma-exposed workers' vulnerability to traumatic stress symptoms was stronger in military than in nonmilitary settings, whereas the extent to which their symptoms crossover to their intimate partners did not vary across occupations. Mediation tests suggest that traumatic stress crossover is partially explained by the worsened quality of the couple's relationship (e.g., increased social support burden and undermining), consistent with the crossover via couple interaction explanation in crossover theory. On the other hand, there was mixed support for the mediating role of the partner's empathy, indicating further research and clarification are needed. Implications for crossover theory and practice are discussed.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
In this article, I describe two fieldwork experiences dealing with traumatic subject matter: a three-month trip to the Russian Federation, researching the crimes of Stalin against the Soviet ...population, and a two-week odyssey across Poland, researching memorialization of the Holocaust as it occurred there. I had a much more difficult time on the Polish trip. These trips took place at different times, and my positionality had changed dramatically between the two experiences. The other relevant factor in each case was the nature of the material itself and the extent to which I was exposed to it. The Stalinist Terror is much more submerged in Russian society, for example, and it was often challenging to find evidence that it had occurred, as this involved travel to often far-flung Gulag and mass execution sites. In the Polish case, however, the Holocaust narrative and evidence of its occurrence was front and center in my experiences there, to the extent that the ubiquity of sites where terrible events occurred became overwhelming. The interaction of my positionality and the extent to which I was exposed to different types of traumatic experience, led to widely differing emotional tolls on my psyche in each case. I hope an analysis of this interaction, and the differing effects it produced provides information about planning and executing research on traumatic subjects that is valuable to others preparing to undertake it. (Or perhaps it will provide a cautionary tale about what to avoid). This article adds to the literature on personal negative outcomes experienced by those researching traumatic subject matter, particularly in the social sciences.
A burgeoning body of scholarship is attempting to understand, normalize, and ameliorate the emotional strain of victim service provision. The literature, however, has yet to fully theorize the ...hazardous process of empathetic engagement with victims. As a result, concepts, mechanisms, and outcomes are often conflated, making it difficult to understand the etiological path of this occupational risk. The goal of this article is to attend to this gap by accomplishing three objectives. The first is to engage with the perspective of symbolic interaction to theoretically ground a conceptual model of secondary trauma. The second objective is to propose a model of secondary trauma that acknowledges its inherently interactional, interpretive, and, thus, vicariously transmissible nature. The third objective is to begin the work of empirically supporting this model with data from a sample of victim service providers (n = 94) collected using in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic participant observation, and community-based participatory research. Our findings suggest that victim service provision, in the form of empathetic engagement, can blur the boundary between self and other, and lead to a sense of damage in the self that manifests in unreliable self-agency, untrustworthy coherence of other, desensitized self-affectivity, and fractured self-history. This work has significant implications. We illustrate an important paradox by showing how victim service provision can be helpful to victims but harmful to providers. We also offer a pathway for reducing this harm. By specifying mechanisms of damage, the model can be used to inform policies and practices supportive of victim service providers’ health and well-being.
Grief and Trauma in the Archives Regehr, Cheryl; Duff, Wendy; Aton, Henria ...
Journal of loss & trauma,
05/2023, Volume:
28, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Reporting on a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews, this paper seeks to elucidate the nature and factors associated with emotional responses in archivists working with records detailing ...human suffering and atrocity, and working with individuals in the community whose lives intersect with the archives. Results detail the impact of these exposures on archivists; and factors influencing emotional responses to traumatic exposures such as the nature of exposure, personal history and connections to the traumatic material, professional engagement and expectations, and the organizational context. Recommendations for mitigating the emotional toll of archival work arising from the data are presented.
Research Framework: Children adopted from foster care may present significant behavioural and relational difficulties due to their experience of neglect/abuse in their family of origin, which will ...have a negative impact on their relational and behavioral functioning in their new family. As a result, the parents who care for them on a daily basis may develop secondary or filial trauma.Objectives: This article presents the partial results of a qualitative study concerning the steps taken by adoptive parents to obtain help.Methodology: Ten adoptive parents were questioned in semi-structured interviews about their motivation for becoming foster-to-adopt parents, the child’s arrival in their family, the difficulties experienced by the child, and their experience of secondary trauma. The interviews were transcribed in full and subjected to content analysis.Results: After explaining the children’s problems, this article details the various services these parents have sought in relation with the important issues experienced in their family: front-line services, private sector services, social emergency services, the police and the Youth Protection Services. Finally, the place of self-help in the face of the significant suffering experienced by adoptive parents is detailed. Conclusion: Although the experience of secondary and filial trauma does not concern all families who adopt from foster care, it is important to provide adequate support for those who do, in order to avoid the child’s placement or the parents’ disengagement.Contribution: This article underlines the importance of uniform, long-term training for foster-to-adopt applicants, support for adoptive parents and training in the prevention of aggressive behaviour in their child.
High-quality video and audio recordings of violent crimes, captured using now ubiquitous digital technologies, play an increasingly important role in the administration of justice. However, the ...effects of exposure to gruesome material presented in this form on criminal justice professionals who analyze, evaluate, and use this potentially traumatic content in the context of their work, are largely unknown. Using long interviews and constructivist grounded theory, this qualitative study sought to explore experiences of exposure to video evidence of violent crime among Canadian criminal justice professionals. Sixteen individuals including police, lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, law clerks, and court reporters volunteered to participate in qualitative long interviews asking about workplace exposures to violent videos. Themes identified address the ubiquity of video evidence of violent crime; proximity to violence through video; being blindsided through lack of preparedness for violent content; repeated exposures through multiple and protracted viewings; insufficient customary methods for self-protection; and the enduring impact of exposure to videoed violence. We determine that criminal justice professionals are increasingly and repeatedly presented with deeply disturbing imagery that was once imperceptible or unknowable and thus previously held at a greater distance. Elements of what is newly visible and audible in video evidence of violent crime create a new emotional proximity to violence that potentially increases the risks of secondary trauma and underscores the need for improved safety measures.
The breathless development of Chinese society has increased the demand for mental health services. Private practice mental health counselors are vulnerable to compassion fatigue, which can affect ...their personal well-being and the quality of services they provide. However, there is a notable scarcity of research focusing on compassion fatigue among this group. This study aimed to contribute to the field by providing a comprehensive profile of private practice mental health counselors in China, offering the first assessment of their compassion fatigue level, and examining the specific impact of characteristic variables on this phenomenon. A total of 109 counselors completed the Compassion Fatigue Short-Scale (CFSS) and a demographic characteristic form. The findings revealed a counseling group with limited maturity and professionalism, primarily holding bachelor’s degrees, working part-time, and having limited experience in practice and supervision. The levels of compassion fatigue were found to be moderate to mild, with educational level and years of practice serving as negative predictors. The findings would enhance the understanding of the profile of private practice counselors in China, supporting the development of interventions to address compassion fatigue for local practice.
While globally there has been growing research interest in the negative psychological consequences faced by helping professionals, literature among Indian Mental Health Professionals (MHPs) is ...sparse, and predominantly focussed on health care workers. This systematic review aims to synthesize and summarize current Indian literature on burnout, secondary traumatic stress and resilience among Indian MHPs. The review explores 14 research studies published in peer-reviewed journals between January 2005 to January 2022. Studies in the areas of secondary traumatic stress, burnout, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and resilience have been included in the review. The term resilience within this paper includes compassion satisfaction, vicarious post-traumatic growth, well-being, coping, and stress management. The mental health professionals considered were psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, psychiatric social workers, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors. Studies were reviewed for their methodological considerations, the mental health population being studied, and the primary outcomes. Data related to sociodemographic variables, psychological impacts, risk and protective factors that influence burnout, secondary trauma and resilience among mental health professionals in India have been reported. The review summarizes conceptual, methodological, and analytical gaps and generates recommendations that contribute to theoretical and practice-based improvements in this area of research and practice.
•Small number of published studies on indirect trauma, burnout and resilience among Indian mental health professionals.•Studies on burnout outnumbered those on Indirect trauma.•No studies were intervention-focussed specific to secondary trauma.•Studies on psychiatrists were largest in number.
The work environment of emergency workers is an important factor related to stress. Coping with the COVID-19 emergency is a factor that is highly related to stress, and severe stress is a risk factor ...for developing secondary trauma. Coping and resilience can help rescue workers to better respond in emergency situations and could protect them from secondary trauma. We aimed to explore the relationship of emergency stress, hardiness, coping strategies, and secondary trauma among emergency workers and the mediating roles of coping strategies and hardiness on the effect of stress in producing secondary trauma. The study involved 513 emergency workers from the Red Cross Committee in Veneto, one of the Italian regions most affected by the COVID-19. Participants completed questionnaires online to measure emergency stress (physical, emotional, cognitive, organizational‒relational, COVID-19, and inefficacy decisional), hardiness, coping strategies, and secondary trauma. Other variables analyzed were age, gender, weekly hours of service, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE). We performed t-tests, a correlational analysis, regressions, and a mediation analysis. Hardiness and coping strategies, in particular, which stop unpleasant emotions and thoughts and problem-focused, emerged as mediators in reducing the predicted effect of stress on secondary trauma. The mediating effects of hardiness and coping strategies were found to reduce the effect of stress on arousal by 15% and the effect on avoidance by 25%.
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