Resilience, Growth, and Posttraumatic Symptoms among Social Workers Who Are "Doubly Exposed".

The current study examined posttraumatic stress (PTS), resilience, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) among social workers (SWs) in Israel exposed to trauma both directly and indirectly through their work. Two groups of SWs were examined: SWs with high exposure to rocket attacks (n = 50) and SWs with low exposure to rocket attacks (n = 52). Measures included objective, subjective, and professional exposure; PTS; vicarious traumatization (VT); resilience; and PTG. Differences between the two groups were found regarding objective, subjective, and professional exposure, as well as PTS, VT, and PTG. No differences were found regarding resilience. PTS and PTG were positively associated. An interaction between group and resilience in predicting PTS and PTG was found. In the highly exposed group, resilience was negatively associated with PTS and positively with PTG, whereas for the low-exposed group resilience was not associated with PTS and was negatively associated with PTG. The discussion focuses on the need to understand the role of resilience and PTG in the psychological reaction of SWs to direct as well as indirect trauma; it also weighs the possibility that PTG serves as a salutogenic variable under high-trauma exposure but as an illusionary means of self-enhancement under low-level exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]