Self Care and Secondary Trauma for Providers

Important Finding:

Lopez-Castillo and colleagues (1999) surveyed 196 health care professionals at 4 hospitals: 38% reported diagnostic levels of psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and impaired functioning at a rate comparable to their patients.

Working with pediatric patients - Impact on the healthcare provider

Working with ill and injured children and families can be professionally meaningful and satisfying, leading to personal growth and "compassion satisfaction". But providers treating children with acute or chronic challenging medical conditions can sometimes feel drained, upset, or frustrated. This may be especially true during times of increased workloads or heightened personal stress.

Sometimes these very human responses get in the way of being optimally effective at work – contributing to tension or conflicts with patients’ families, or to stresses within the health care team.

What is secondary traumatic stress?

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, secondary traumatic stress is emotional distress that results when an individual hears about the trauma experiences of another. All kinds of helping professions and frontline responders are vulnerable to secondary traumatic stress. Members of the healthcare team may not simply hear about the trauma that their patients have experienced, they may also be first hand witnesses and involved in the child's or family's unfolding experience.

Secondary traumatic stress can be acute or chronic - and eventually may affect a provider's own emotional health and well0being.

Preventing and managing secondary traumatic stress

In responding to the pain and distress of children and families, the research suggests that the ability to identify, understand and manage one’s emotional reactions, and to integrate effective self care strategies are paramount to preventing and/or managing secondary traumatic stress for healthcare staff.

Organizations have a key role to play in prevention of secondary traumatic stress. Healthcare systems have a responsibility to build in robust organizational supports for healthcare staff and providers.

See tips for self-care
Learn about organization supports

Tools and resources on secondary traumatic stress

Take a 1 hour online course on secondary traumatic stress
Download a slideset on secondary traumatic stress to share with your team
Learn about quick tools for coping with stress related to COVID-19
Learn about the Stress-Less Initiative for teams
Download the Provider Resilience mobile app from the National Center for Telehealth and Technology
Learn about the NCTSN's Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment

Learn about the Secondary Traumatic Stress Innovations and Solutions Center, a partner in the NCTSN

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Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress

Patient Education

Screening & Assessment

Intervention

Trauma-Informed Care

COVID-19

Resources

Important Finding: