An Empirical Study into the Psychosocial Reactions of Staff Working as Helpers to those Affected in the Aftermath of two Traumatic Incidents

Abstract

This paper will address the outcome of the first empirical study on the psychosocial impact on four groups of professional staff involved as helpers in the aftermath of two major incidents. The two incidents selected were the Kegworth Air disaster that occurred in the East Midlands area of England in 1989 and a terrorist bombing on the Shankill Road Belfast, Northern Ireland (NI) in 1993. The four groups of staff chosen for the research, both in England and Northern Ireland, were social workers, ambulance personnel, accident and emergency nurses and clergy. The policy and practice implications of the study were used to develop a training programme for those who have to cope with trauma in their workplace. The need for such training was based on the hypothesis that pre‐training will help to ameliorate any negative reactions that may be experienced by the helpers. The results from both incidents were compared to highlight the impact of the work on helpers working with victims from a single incident trauma and in a situation where there was multiple incident traumatization.