The Relationship between War Trauma, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Anxiety Among Health Professionals Working at Emergency Departments in Gaza-Strip

Aims: The aims of the study were 1) to investigate the type and severity of traumatic event for health professionals working at emergency department, 2) to find the most common mental health problems results from trauma (Secondary traumatic stress and anxiety), and 3) to investigate the relationships between trauma, secondary traumatization, anxiety, and other socioeconomic variables.

Method: The sample consisted of 214 health professionals working in hospitals emergency rooms in Gaza, who completed the Gaza Traumatic Events Checklist, Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale.

Results: Participants reported a range of traumatic events, commonly they reported watching the pictures of corpses, wounded and the killed people in TV (88.79%), witnessed wounded and the killed people and body parts while working in the emergency department (86.45%), and lost a family member or friends in the war (62.6%). According to secondary traumatic stress criteria, 45% of the health professionals met the criteria for secondary traumatic stress meeting all three core diagnostic criteria. While 51.7% had moderate to severe anxiety symptoms. There was a significant relationship between traumatic events and total secondary traumatic stress and anxiety.

Relevance to clinical practice: Secondary trauma is not well considered in research into clinically important topics. Yet health professionals deal regularly with issues of death and dying, and with violence and abuse. Our proposed framework allows for consideration of these so that precautionary measures can be put in place to minimize harm to health staff in the Gaza Strip Hospitals.

Author(s): Nader Ahmed Matter and Abdel Aziz Mousa Thabet

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