101. Secondary traumatic stress among emergency nurses: Prevalence, predictors, and consequences.
- Author
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Ratrout, Hamza Fathi and Hamdan‐Mansour, Ayman M.
- Subjects
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ANALYSIS of variance , *STATISTICAL correlation , *EMERGENCY nursing , *HOSPITAL emergency services , *INFORMED consent (Medical law) , *JOB satisfaction , *JOB stress , *RESEARCH methodology , *NURSE administrators , *NURSE practitioners , *QUESTIONNAIRES , *REGRESSION analysis , *STATISTICAL sampling , *SELF-evaluation , *SICK leave , *SAMPLE size (Statistics) , *STATISTICAL power analysis , *DISEASE prevalence , *HUMAN research subjects , *CROSS-sectional method , *DATA analysis software , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *KRUSKAL-Wallis Test , *ONE-way analysis of variance - Abstract
Background: Nurses working in emergency units are in direct contact with traumatic events. Trauma effects do not solely affect patients and their caregivers and, rather, extend to secondarily influence nurses themselves. Secondary exposure to trauma may result in symptoms similar to symptoms experienced by the patient themselves. No previous study investigated the secondary traumatic stress among emergency nurses in Jordan. Purpose To identify prevalence, predictors, and consequences of secondary traumatic stress among nurses working in emergency departments. Method: A descriptive correlation design was utilized to collect data using self‐report questionnaires from 202 nurses working at eight emergency departments in Jordan. Findings The study revealed that almost half of the sample reported high to severe levels of secondary traumatic stress. The analyses showed that nurses who demonstrated lower empathy (P =.016) and greater coping capacity (P <.001) tended to develop more secondary traumatic stress. Organizational factors were not significant predictors of secondary traumatic stress. Conclusion: A significant proportion of emergency nurses suffer secondary traumatic stress that is found also to be associated with psychical factors. Emergency nurses need to consider the consequences of secondary traumatic stress on their health and quality of care provided. SUMMARY STATEMENT: What is already known about this topic? Emergency nurses are susceptible to develop secondary traumatic stress due to nature of their work and being repetitively exposed to traumatic patients.No studies have examined existence of secondary traumatic stress among nurses in Jordan and in the Arab countries.The literature has contradicting findings on factors that can enhance or attenuate development of secondary traumatic stress symptoms. What this paper adds? More than half of the participants reported high to severe levels of secondary traumatic stress indicating that secondary traumatic stress is apparent among ER nurses in Jordan.Coping and empathy are important predictors of secondary traumatic stress among emergency nurses.Nurses who reported higher level of secondary traumatic stress symptoms tended to have more work‐related absenteeism and more sick days. The implications of this paper: There is a need to raise awareness of both nurses and health care leaders to existence of secondary traumatic stress among emergency nurses and to establish screening tools and referral procedures for risky nurses.Theory of secondary traumatic stress has to be revised to provide more robust view about the process by which secondary traumatic stress develops among helping professionals.Future studies have to examine factors that may contribute to secondary traumatic stress other than factors addressed in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
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