Stress responses to secondary trauma: Compassion fatigue and anticipatory traumatic reaction among youth workers

Abstract

Trauma can have far reaching effects – even for those who experience it indirectly. Compassion fatigue, which often occurs for caring professionals who provide support for traumatized individuals, involves symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and job burnout. Anticipatory traumatic reaction is a future-focused form of distress arising from media reports and social discussions of disasters and large-scale negative events. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship and interactions between these two conditions, both stress responses arising from secondary exposure to trauma. A cohort of 48 youth workers completed measures of secondary traumatic stress, burnout, compassion satisfaction, general distress, and anticipatory traumatic reaction. Anticipatory traumatic reaction magnified the relationship between secondary traumatic stress and general distress. Mediation analysis showed that general distress connected secondary traumatic stress with burnout. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that anticipatory traumatic reaction interacted with general distress in connecting secondary traumatic stress with burnout. The results suggested that youth workers’ levels of depression, anxiety, and stress may help link secondary traumatic stress to burnout. High levels of anticipatory traumatic reaction may exacerbate distress, potentially putting youth workers at greater risk of burnout. Longitudinal and experimental studies should clarify the interactions between anticipatory traumatic reaction and compassion fatigue and determine if anticipatory traumatic reaction can facilitate burnout for people in other occupations. It will be important to identify interventions to mitigate this form of distress.