Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Yoly Zentella

Abstract

Work-related traumatic exposure has been studied but has not been concisely defined in the widest range of research studying trauma exposure. Specifically, it is not known from previous research whether direct, indirect, and vicarious trauma exposure predict burnout and PTSD in acute care mental health care workers. The emotional processing theory was used as theoretical foundation informing this study as the habituation of response to stress and trauma has been shown to occur incidentally and cumulatively; the theory supports the concept of dichotomous and continuous type of trauma exposure over time. The purpose of this study was to use a concise definition of trauma exposure types: direct trauma and indirect trauma and vicarious trauma to determine if there exists a relationship between type of work-related trauma exposure and burnout and PTSD while controlling for non work-related trauma exposure. This study used an electronic survey design using a quantitative multi factorial correlational design to analyze the survey data of eight participants as they relate to the research questions. The findings of this study indicated a higher level of variance in emotional exhaustion and PTSD when measured quantitatively and a low level of variance in depersonalization across the data set. The findings must be evaluated cautiously due to the small sample. These findings may be used by administrators for positive social change to reduce trauma exposure in human service workers that work with the acutely mentally ill in communities.

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