Vicarious Posttraumatic Growth (VPTG) Among Health Care and Social Service Providers in Disasters

Background: Vicarious posttraumatic growth (VPTG), which refers to positive psychological change resulting from vicarious trauma exposure, has received increasing attention in disaster research and scholarship. How to effectively help disaster first responders enhance VPTG following vicarious trauma has not been intensively studied and more efforts are needed to understand their experiences. Our study examined trajectories of VPTG among healthcare providers who took part in a community-based psychosocial intervention, the Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community (RCHC).

Methods: We used four waves of data evaluating trajectories of VPTG among healthcare providers who participated in the RCHC in 2017-2018 compared to a waitlist comparison condition. VPTG level was measured based on five domains (i.e., personal strength, relationship with others, appreciation of life, new possibilities in life, and spirituality) consisted of items from Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Social Provisions Scale (SPS), and Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL). The survey was administered one year after the hurricanes to providers in Texas (n=304) who responded to hurricane Harvey and Puerto Rico (n=729) who responded to hurricane Maria. We identified PTG trajectories across time among health care providers using the Linear Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM) analyses.

Results: Significantly greater decreases in VPTG were observed among individuals in the waitlist comparison condition (β= -1.793, p<0.05) compared to those who participated in the RCHC intervention. Among healthcare providers in the waitlist comparison condition, we observed those living in Texas, and those who were older and had less field experience encountered the greatest in VPTG across time.

Conclusions and Implications: Prior studies of VPTG have been limited due to small samples and cross-sectional study designs. This research was among the first to examine the longitudinal trajectory of VPTG using a large-scale sample of disaster healthcare providers. Findings indicated the RCHC ameliorated the decrease in VPTG across time among providers in Texas and Puerto Rico. Notably, providers in Texas who did not receive the RCHC experienced the greatest decreases in VPTG. Future research should examine how contextual factors such as organizational context or level of disaster exposure which may have influenced reductions in VPTG among providers. Accessible mental health interventions and long-term supports for these providers may be beneficial as the decreasing trajectory of VPTG, specifically for older providers and individuals with less experience in the field. Further research is needed to understand VPTG among healthcare providers in post-disaster contexts.