ABSTRACT
Introduction
Mental health nurses can experience trauma in their personal and work lives; however there is no prior qualitative research describing these experiences.
Aim
Describe mental health nurses’ experience of potentially traumatic events in their personal and professional lives.
Method
Qualitative descriptive study of mental health nurses describing traumatic events in a survey. Content analysis conducted using Foli’s trauma framework.
Results
Eighty-two mental health nurses described potentially traumatic events. Most (65%) were personal events, including deaths and suicides of family members, domestic and family violence, and adverse childhood experiences. Workplace events included violence, consumer and colleague deaths, second-victim trauma, and trauma from insufficient workplace resources.
Discussion
Due to their trauma experiences, nurses are at risk of poorer psychological health and re-traumatisation through their work.
Limitations
Findings are limited to one group of mental health nurses in one setting.
Implications
Organisations need to place nurses and other staff at the centre of approaches for addressing trauma, and support nurses’ trauma-informed self-care.
Recommendations
Organisations have a duty of care to staff. Organisation-wide trauma-informed approaches in mental health services are recommended, that are staff-centred as well as consumer-centred. Continued efforts to reduce avoidable sources of trauma at work, such as violence and lack of workplace resources, are needed.