Work‐related stress in a humanitarian context: a qualitative investigation

Jachens, Liza; Houdmont, Jonathan; Thomas, Roslyn

doi:10.1111/disa.12278

Cited by 33 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Assisting refugees who have endured traumatic experiences can be a psychologically hazardous occupation for aid-workers. Humanitarian service professions include occupational stressors that may negatively affect providers' behaviour, producing stress symptoms similar in nature to the ones suffered by their traumatized clients (Connorton, Perry, Hemenway, & Miller, 2012;Jachens, Houdmont, & Thomas, 2018). Most common is secondary traumatic stress (STS), resembling to PTSDsymptoms that follow frequent exposure to trauma materials including emotional and behavioural responses such as intrusiveness of persistent arousal, avoidance and/or numbing in the presence of trauma reminders, and reexperiencing the survivor's trauma event (Figley, 1995).…”

Section: Trauma-work Stressors and Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies report negative ramifications for aid-workers' wellbeing including threats to health and somatization (Connorton et al, 2012;Costa et al, 2015;Jachens et al, 2018), especially to the ones working with Syrian refugees (Chemali et al, 2017). They note numerous medical disorders aid-workers experienced while undertaking their humanitarian work, in addition to complaints of physical pain and general fatigue (Costa et al, 2015).…”

Section: Trauma-work and Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trauma during humanitarian work: the effects on intimacy, wellbeing and PTSD-symptoms

Rizkalla

Segal

2019

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: Organizations assisting refugees are over burdened with the Syrian humanitarian catastrophe and encounter diverse difficulties facing the consequences of this massive displacement. Aid-workers experience the horrors of war through their efforts to alleviate suffering of Syrian refugees. Objective: This study of Syrian refugee aid-workers in Jordan examined work-stressors identified as secondary traumatic stress (STS), number of refugees assisted, worker feelings towards the organization, and their associations to PTSD-symptoms, wellbeing and intimacy. It also examined whether self-differentiation, physical health, and physical pain were associated with these variables. Method: Syrian refugee aid-workers (N = 317) in Jordan's NGOs were surveyed. Univariate statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) were utilized to test study hypotheses. Results: Increased STS was associated with lower self-differentiation, decreased physical health and increased physical pain, as well as elevated PTSD-symptoms and decreased intimacy. Decreased connection to the NGO was associated with lower self-differentiation, decreased physical health, increased physical pain, and with decreased intimacy and wellbeing. Lower self-differentiation was associated with increased PTSD-symptoms, decreased wellbeing and intimacy. Elevated physical pain was associated with increased PTSDsymptoms, and decreased wellbeing. Diverse mediation effects of physical health, physical pain and self-differentiation were found among the study's variables. Conclusions: Aid-workers who assist refugees were at risk of physical and mental sequelae as well as suffering from degraded self-differentiation, intimacy and wellbeing. Organizations need to develop prevention policies and tailor interventions to better support their aid-workers while operating in such stressful fieldwork.

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Section: Trauma-work Stressors and Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trauma-work and Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trauma during humanitarian work: the effects on intimacy, wellbeing and PTSD-symptoms

Rizkalla

Segal

2019

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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“…Excessive empathetic engagement with traumatic information is a risk factor for secondary traumatic stress [ 11 , 12 ]. It is a syndrome that mimics the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but unlike PTSD, it is caused by secondary exposure to trauma [ 13 , 14 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Review of Job Demands and Resources Associated with Compassion Fatigue in Mental Health Professionals

Singh

Karanika‐Murray

Baguley

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Psychosocial hazards in mental healthcare contribute to the development of compassion fatigue in mental health professionals. Compassion fatigue has a negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of professionals that can impair the quality of services provided to clients. The majority of research on compassion fatigue has focused on individual-level variables such as gender, history of trauma and age, among others. It is also imperative to understand the role played by alterable work-related characteristics in contributing to the development of compassion fatigue in order to attenuate its impact on mental health professionals and their clients. The present review examined articles exploring work-related factors associated with compassion fatigue. Fifteen quantitative studies were included and their quality was assessed using a checklist. An inductive content-analysis approach was adopted to synthesise the themes emerging from the data. The results suggested a theoretical model consistent with the Job Demands-Resources model, wherein job demands (such as workplace trauma, workload and therapeutic settings) are associated with compassion fatigue, and job resources (such as supervisors’, coworkers’ and organisational support) mitigate the impact of job demands. In addition to person-oriented factors, work-related factors are critical for the prevention of compassion fatigue.

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“…In the humanitarian context, psychosocial risk assessment research and practice remains in its infancy; for example, there is no research on the JDC model to date. However, there is an emerging evidence base indicating a high prevalence of stress-related health problems [11,12,13,14,15] and associations between psychosocial stressors (ERI) and stress-related health problems (burnout, heavy drinking) [11,12]. As stress in different occupations may be marked by different types of psychosocial stressors [16,17] and have a multitude of organizational sources, it may be beneficial to include characteristics of both these leading psychosocial work environment models in efforts to assess and control stress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effort-Reward Imbalance and Job Strain: A Composite Indicator Approach

Jachens

Houdmont

2019

IJERPH

Self Cite

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The Job Demand-Control-Support (JDC-S) and Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) models dominate psychosocial work environment research and practice, with their independent and collective contributions to employee health having been extensively demonstrated. Psychosocial risk assessment in the humanitarian aid sector is in its infancy, and there is a need to identify appropriate psychosocial work environment models to inform approaches to assessment. The aim of this study is to examine the efficacy of these models separately and in combination to identify psychological distress in humanitarian aid workers. Cross-sectional survey data were obtained from 283 humanitarian aid workers. Logistic regression analyses investigated the separate and combined ability of the models to identify psychological distress. More than half of the participant sample reported psychological distress, and one third reported high ERI and high job strain. When tested separately, each model was associated with a significantly elevated likelihood of psychological distress. When tested in combination, the two models offered a superior estimation of the likelihood of psychological distress than achieved by one model in isolation. Psychosocial risk assessment in the humanitarian aid sector encompassing the characteristics of both these leading psychosocial work environment models captures the breadth of relevant generic psychosocial work characteristics. These initial findings require corroboration through longitudinal research involving sector-representative samples.

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Work‐related stress in a humanitarian context: a qualitative investigation

Cited by 33 publications

References 47 publications

Trauma during humanitarian work: the effects on intimacy, wellbeing and PTSD-symptoms

Trauma during humanitarian work: the effects on intimacy, wellbeing and PTSD-symptoms

A Systematic Review of Job Demands and Resources Associated with Compassion Fatigue in Mental Health Professionals

Effort-Reward Imbalance and Job Strain: A Composite Indicator Approach

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