Spirituality and Vicarious Trauma Among Professions

Objective
The aim of this study was to expand the understanding of spirituality and vicarious trauma and vicarious growth by examining the lived experiences of frontline health care providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants) dealing with trauma patients.

Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders
In the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th ed. (DSM-5), there is a new category, “Trauma and Stressor Related Disorders.” One of the criteria A items for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is “experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s) (e.g., first responders collecting human remains; police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse)” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 271).

This is the first time vicarious trauma has been recognized as a psychological disorder. Health care professionals working with trauma patients are at risk of developing a trauma-related disorder, including dissociative symptoms, one of which is depersonalization, “persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from and as if one were an outside observer of, one's mental processes or body (e.g., feeling as though one were in a dream; feeling a sense of unreality of self or body or of time moving slowly)” (p. 272).

Research has been conducted to assess the relationship between vicarious trauma and vicarious growth to assess whether the relationship is linear or curvilinear (Dar & Iqbal, 2020; Yaakubov et al., 2020). Results vary, suggesting that the relationship between the two is complex but that research needs to appreciate the potential presence of each. However, there are indications that prevention efforts that utilize elements of vicarious growth can be an effective means of guarding frontline trauma health care workers against vicarious trauma (Sansbury et al., 2015).

Spirituality

Spirituality is defined as “that which allows a person to experience transcendent meaning in life, often expressed as a relationship with God, but can also be about nature, art, music, family, or community—whatever beliefs and values give a person a sense of meaning and purpose in life” (Puchalski & Romer, 2000, p. 129). This study emphasized spirituality in a broad sense, including persons who may or may not be religious (including atheists), with the understanding that some persons choose to express their spirituality through religion. The terms “religion” and “spirituality” are used together with this underlying foundation.

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