Author(s): Merve DENÄ°Z PAK⢠Emre ÃZCAN** Arzu Ä°ÃAÄASIOÄLU ÃOBAN
Emergency departments are places where people are exposed to life threatening situations due to sudden developments such as illnesses, accidents and traumas, where most of the crisis situations are experienced and employees feel pressure from the physical, emotional and social aspects. Working in these units makes the person vulnerable to stress, burnout and traumatic experiences. The purpose of this study is to determine the level of secondary traumatic stress and psychological resilience in terms of some sociodemographic variables of the emergency service workers. In addition, it is to establish the relationship between employees' secondary traumatic stress levels and psychological resilience. For this purpose, the research was designed in a relational screening model. The sample of the study consisted of 117 persons consisting of doctors, nurses, paramedics, health officers, emergency medical technicians and anesthesia technicians working in Emergency Medicine Technicians and Technicians (Paramedics) Association and Emergency Medicine Association of Turkey. The data of the survey were collected from 9 July to 9 August 2017 with the questionnaire developed by the researchers with face to face interview technique. In the first part of the questionnaire there were questions aimed at determining the socio-demographic characteristics of the employees. The level of secondary traumatic stress to which workers are subjected is determined via Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale developed by Bride et al. (2004) and Psychological Resilience Scale developed by Kobasa (1979). The obtained data were analyzed via the SPSS 21.0 program. 57.3% of the employees are male, 42.7% are female, and the majorities of the participants are married and have children. The average age is 31.33. 29,9% of the participants are associate, 26,5% are undergraduate, 18,8% are high school, 10,3% are masters and 14,5% are doctorate. The majority (26.5%) are doctors. 66.7% of the participants work in the public sector and 37.6% work in the emergency service for more than 5 years. 58.1% of participants stated that they were subjected to experienced violence in emergency service and 63.2% were affected by the trauma suffered by the individuals with whom they had helped. It was found that there was a significant positive correlation between the duration of emergency service experience and the exposure to secondary trauma effects. 82.1% of the employees did not receive in-service training for the psychosocial difficulties of working in emergency service. Education is important as a preventive factor. There is a need for interventions in this area to empower workers in the context of medical social work and to reduce the stress levels of employees and contribute to increasing their psychological resilience.
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