Shared Traumatic Stress among Social Workers in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

摘要: Abstract Withclimatechange,socialworkersandothermentalhealthprofessionalsmayfindthem-selves living and working in environments prone to natural disasters. The term sharedtraumatic stress (SdTS) contains aspects of post-traumatic secondary trauma,and reflects practitioners’ dual exposure collective traumatic events. In an effort toexplore further validate the construct SdTS, a sample 244 social workers fromNew Orleans were studied using path analytic modelling with respect personaland professional impact Hurricane Katrina. Potential risk factors included attachmentstyle, potentially life events enduring distress attributed toHurricane Social workers’ resilience was examined for its role mediating therelationship between these SdTS. As hypothesised, insecure attachment,greater general related tothe surrounding Katrina predictive higher levels Inse-cure attachment also significantly predictedlower resilience, though did not.Resiliencewasfoundtomediatetherelationshipbetweeninsecureattachment,enduringdistress SdTS but not relationship topotentially Implications theory, research practiceare described.Keywords: Shared trauma, shared stress, reality, HurricaneKatrina, workertrauma,secondarytrauma