Nursing

How to ease healthcare worker trauma

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, March 31, 2006

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education!

The following checklist offers tips to help hospitals guard their workers' mental well-being during and after a stressful incident. We compiled this information from Judi Light Hopson, owner of Hopson Global Education in Johnson City, TN, and James Peloquen, MD, medical director of outpatient programs for the department of psychiatry at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, NY:

  • Intervene early if staff appear to be experiencing incident-related stress. "Find out if they're paranoid or angry and . . . talk to them in a way that helps them to manage their feelings without getting violent," says Peloquen.

  • Establish rapport with traumatized healthcare workers. Staff will respond to caring eye contact and a calm presence. Conveying respect and being nonjudgmental are necessary ingredients for building a bond.

  • Allow affected healthcare workers to express emotions. Conveying intense feelings through tears or angry venting is an important part of healing. Mental health teams should stay relaxed while letting healthcare workers know that it is acceptable to express feelings.

To learn eight more tips for easing healthcare worker trauma, go to Briefings on Hospital Safety (BOHS). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire March issue of BOHS. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of BOHS have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their March issue.



Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education!

Most Popular

Related Articles