Vicarious Trauma and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Organisations

• NCJ Number: 309704
• Author(s): Samantha A. Meeker; Alisa K. Lincoln; Beth E. Molnar
• Date Published: August 2024
• Agencies: OVC-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This publication provides a measurement tool for assessing how vicarious trauma-informed an organization is; it presents research and resources that have been identified by the VT Toolkit developers as being helpful to trauma and victim services professionals; it also identifies and discusses five pillars of support for employees based on a modified version of Galbraith's Star Model.

Abstract

Vicarious trauma (VT) is an occupational challenge incurred through hearing about traumatic experiences of others such as child maltreatment, mass casualties, and others while serving in helping professions. Without sufficient resources and support, long-term exposure can lead to symptoms such as intrusion, avoidance, arousal, emotional numbing, anxiety, and decline in one's ability to work. Organizations can mitigate VT's impact by addressing the needs of staff through 5 evidence-informed areas of occupational health. This project explored the impact of VT-informed practices on organizational responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors compared responses from 50 organizations on strengths and weaknesses in core areas of being VT-informed to how those organizations responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subscales of the VT Organizational Readiness Guide (VT-ORG) were utilized as the exposure variables and 4 new COVID-19 questions served as the outcome. They ran a series of multilevel linear regression models with clustering controlled for at the organizational level. Staff ratings on 4 of the 5 pillars of the VT-ORG were positively associated with the organization’s responsiveness to the pandemic. Various demographic factors of the employees were negatively associated with organizations’ responsiveness to the pandemic. While this study contributes to the growing research on VT, it also provides justification for helping organizations to become VT-informed; it provides evidence that being prepared for VT can also be useful to support workers and their communities during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (Published Abstract Provided)