Secondary Traumatization, Psychological Stress, and Resilience in Psychosocial Emergency Care Personnel

Anja Greinacher, Alexander Nikendei, Renate Kottke, Jürgen Wiesbeck, Wolfgang Herzog and Christoph Nikendei
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Anja Greinacher: Department of General Internal Medicine and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Heidelberg, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
Alexander Nikendei: Department of General Internal Medicine and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Heidelberg, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
Renate Kottke: German Red Cross, Baden-Wuerttemberg Regional Association, 70372 Stuttgart, Germany
Jürgen Wiesbeck: German Red Cross, Baden-Wuerttemberg Regional Association, 70372 Stuttgart, Germany
Wolfgang Herzog: Department of General Internal Medicine and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Heidelberg, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
Christoph Nikendei: German Red Cross, Rescue Service Bodensee-Oberschwaben, 88520 Ravensburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: Volunteers active in psychosocial emergency care offer psychological first aid to survivors of accidents and trauma, their relatives, eye witnesses, bystanders, and other first responders. So far, there are no studies that investigate the secondary and primary traumatization of this group of first responders. We included N = 75 volunteers, who filled out questionnaires to assess their secondary (QST/FST) and primary traumatization (PDS), and levels of comorbid psychological stress (PHQ-9, GAD-7, SF-12). We investigated factors of resilience by measuring attachment behavior (ECR-RD, RQ-2), level of personality functioning (OPD-SFK), sense of coherence (SOC-29), social support (F-SozU), and mindfulness (MAAS). The volunteers’ levels of secondary and primary traumatization were below cut-off scores. Their levels of comorbid psychological stress were comparable to representative norm samples. Additionally, the volunteers presented high levels of resilience. Gender (β = 0.26; p < 0.05), case discussions (β = −0.37; p < 0.05), and social support (β = 0.45; p < 0.01) were revealed to be predictors of secondary traumatization, while mindfulness turned out to be a predictor of primary traumatization (β = −0.34; p = 0.008). However, we cannot rule out that the low prevalence of traumatization and comorbid psychological stress in our study sample might not be explained by a positive response bias.

Keywords: psychosocial emergency care; secondary traumatization; psychological stress; resilience factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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