After our conversation last week, I wanted to provide you with a couple
additional resources extenuating the validity of our proposed study into
specific interventions resulting in the most efficacious reduction of
secondary traumatic stress in nurses. You will find that the most common
key terms in these articles as they relate to our research as follows:
Secondary-traumatic stress, ProQOL (measuring STS, compassion fatigue,
guilt), and empathy. While both explore STS via the ProQOL, they provide
potential substantial evidence for us if we choose as we move forward.
First, Cain and Gautreaux (2022) utilized a direct approach to symptom
reduction of STS, burnout, and compassion fatigue by evaluating the pre
and post scores of nurses ProQOL (N=113 nurses out of 164 providers).
Specifically, they evaluated how a 9-hour educational seminar relating to
child maltreatment would impact individual scores of compassion
satisfaction, burnout, and STS, along with recognition of child
maltreatment. Most significantly, it was found that the educational
intervention did result in reduction in STS (P=.035) as quantified by
Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test with<p <<.05 being significant. Unfortunately,
they only obtained a 51.2% response rate for the posttest without
specifically identifying the number of nurses that did supply posttest data.
That being said, I believe this study provides a basis to further hone our
study by implementing CE-CERT interventions to our experimental group
and the standard CBT techniques most commonly used. Again, the most
advantageous feature of this article is the presence of a specific
intervention leading to reduction of STS in nurses, thus providing us with
additional supporting evidence and direction to explore our research
question.
Separately, I also found this article that I believe increases the validity of
our projected research design. In their research, Mottahi, Poursheikhali,
and Shameli (2020) explored the role a nurse’s level of empathy has on
contributing to levels of secondary traumatic stress. Out of the 300 nurses
accepted into the study, level of empathy explains 77% of the compassion
fatigue variance in survivorship guilt associated with STS. Furthermore,
the results of the Sobel test equated to zero with significance of<p =.0002
for secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, the identification of empathy
having a significant role in levels of STS experienced by nurses lends itself
to support the need for direct intervention aimed at empathy, which CE-
CERT does. While this article does highlight a key factor of our proposed
research, the results were gathered via self-report survey. While this does
not refute the body of research gathered, perhaps we should follow
through with collecting our data in additional ways to those of self-report
surveys. <
Conjunctively, three key points we can move forward with and analyze
from these articles is 1) direct intervention can lead to reduction of STS
symptoms (Cain & Gautreaux, 2022), 2) nurse level of empathy is
significantly associated with levels of STS and 3) alternative forms of data
collection may supply supplemental and additional perspective into a
nurse’s level of STS described by the ProQOL. Personally, I believe we
should still utilize the ProQOL as a baseline and nurse perceived change in
STS, while also conducting brief Likert scale questions on several of each
nurse’s patients over the course of the intervention. We undoubtedly must
look at cost, time, and practicality of this method, but I do believe it would
provide data that can further our research as well as research to follow.
Read over these articles for yourself and we will discuss them further in
our next meeting.
<
<
Cain, C. M., & Gautreaux, K. (2022). Reducing secondary traumatic stress
and fueling knowledge of child maltreatment< among health care
providers. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 29(1), 41–46.<https://doi-
org.acu.idm.oclc.org/10.1097/jtn.0000000000000630 < (Links to an external
site.)
<
Mottaghi, S., Poursheikhali, H., & Shameli, L. (2020). Empathy,
compassion fatigue, guilt and secondary traumatic stress in
nurses.<Nursing Ethics, 27(2), 494–504.
https://doi-org.acu.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0969733019851548
