Emotional Debriefing Research Articles

Psychological Wellbeing, Help Seeking Behaviour on Coping Amongst Professional Psychologists

The study explored and examined effect of help seeking behaviours on psychological wellbeing, and ways of coping among Professional Psychologists in Accra, Ghana using a case study research design. A total of 116 respondents were selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected using standardized Likert type questionnaires which comprised the WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5; 1998 version), Africultural Coping Systems Inventory (ACSI) (Utsey, Adams, & Bolden 2000), and the Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPHS) (Fischer & Farina, 1995). Data was analyzed using Descriptive statistics, Reliability and Normality tests, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient test, Simple Linear Regression Analysis, and Multivariate Analysis of Variance test. Results revealed that a significant positive correlation exists between help seeking behaviour and psychological wellbeing. Secondly, Coping style (i.e., cognitive and emotional debriefing, and ritual centered coping) significantly predicts help seeking behaviours. Meanwhile, only cognitive and emotional debriefing coping style predicts psychological wellbeing.

Call to Action: The Need for a Standardized Emotional Debriefing Model for Clinical Settings

Clinicians in high-acuity hospital settings experience chronic distress due to the secondhand trauma experienced at work. Chaplains are often responsible for providing staff support to address this distress. One form of staff support is emotional debriefing after critical events. There are few publications about emotional debriefings. It would benefit chaplains to engage in research and discovery regarding emotional debriefing and create a standard model for chaplains to use in staff support.

Caring for a University Community During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development of an Online Psychological Support Service (UCare)

The present paper aims to share a university medical services’ experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a reaction to the predictable negative psychosocial impact on the community brought by home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Coimbra (Portugal) implemented an emotional support line (UCare). A team of clinical psychologists provided online intervention through videocalls, audio, or text. From March to July 2020, 56 people, mostly students, utilised UCare, through 90 appointments. Users reported difficulties regarding academic issues, time management, anxiety, isolation, sleep disorders, fear of infection, and exacerbation of previous psychopathology. Interventions included emotional debriefing, time management strategies, emotional regulation, and sleep quality improvement techniques. Psychotherapeutic tools (e.g., flyers, audio tutorials) were made available after appointments. Over 30% of users were referred to clinical psychology services. In an evaluation of UCare user satisfaction, all respondents rated the interventions between “useful” or “very useful” and reported high satisfaction levels. UCare targeted vulnerable groups (international and post-graduate students) and had an important role in identifying specific mental health problems. Future directions are discussed.

Secondary Traumatic Stress in Ob-Gyn: A Mixed Methods Analysis Assessing Physician Impact and Needs

This study aims to evaluate the incidence of secondary traumatic stress in Obstetrics and Gynecology physicians including symptoms, impact, and programmatic needs for support. This study used a mixed-methods approach comprised of an anonymous online survey and individual interviews/focus groups. IBM SPSS 24.0 generated statistical analysis: descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test to compare nominal survey data and across groups, phi correlations (ϕ) and interitem reliability (Cronbach alpha). Constant comparative qualitative analysis determined cross-cutting themes. Research was approved by institutional IRB. This study was conducted at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a large academic medical institution. Participants were recruited from the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology via email. Faculty, fellows, and residents participated in an anonymous online survey and were invited to complete individual interviews or focus groups. The online survey was distributed to 67 clinical faculty, residents, and fellows with a total of 27 individuals completing the reliable (alpha = 0.71) anonymous survey (40% response rate). Ten faculty participated in individual interviews or focus groups. Respondents to the quantitative survey identified involvement in adverse medical events (95%) and symptoms of traumatic stress (75%). Anxiety (81%), guilt (62%), and disrupted sleep (58%) were most frequently reported symptoms (mean number of symptoms = (3.4(±2.1)). Individuals reporting anxiety were more likely to seek support from colleagues (ϕ = 0.5, p < 0.006); those reporting guilt would go to friends (ϕ = 0.5, p < 0.007). Disrupted sleep more commonly led to seeking mental health services (ϕ = 0.5, p < 0.007). Desire for support varied. Those reporting anxiety were interested in peer-to-peer responders (ϕ = 0.6, p < 0.001); those reporting guilt would use debriefing sessions (ϕ = 0.4, p < 0.023). Qualitative data from individual interviews and focus groups yielded descriptions of physical and cognitive symptoms associated with second victim experiences included responsibility, guilt/shame, self-doubt, anxiety/rumination and sleep disturbance. Identified resources for coping: just culture, collegial support, peer-to-peer responders, and structured case conferences for emotional debriefing. Obstetrics and Gynecology providers are likely to experience symptoms of secondary traumatic stress following adverse patient events similar to other medical specialties. Comprehensive programs to address emotional well-being of physicians are important to promote collegiality and reduce symptoms of secondary traumatic stress. Safety and transparency with opportunities for group processing are identified as essentials for positive institutional culture, as well as peer support programs.

A Call to Restore Your Calling: Self-Care of the Emergency Physician in the Face of Life-Changing Stress: Part 5 of 6: Physician Burnout.

This fifth article in our series focuses on burnout in practicing pediatric emergency medicine physicians. As opposed to a general review of burnout, we address understudied and undervalued risk factors, drivers, and individual- and organizational-level solutions applicable to the emergency medicine workplace.Conflicting studies impact our understanding of the prevalence of burnout in our field and the role of depression. This article's story is anonymously submitted and leads us to our discussion of the heightened risk of burnout in underrepresented physicians, those who identify themselves as women, as belonging to a racial, ethnic, gender and/or sexual minority group, and/or as having a physical and/or sensory disability.Thus far, our articles have described coping tools for individuals and health care organizations to prevent and/or mitigate the untoward effects of life-changing stressors on a pediatric emergency physician's life. They include staying healthy and active, cultivating outside interests, and nurturing relationships with peers, friends, and family. We have shared the techniques and benefits of constructive engagement when one is faced with challenging events or individuals. We have underscored the value of peer support, support groups, emotional debriefing, and engaging with outside organizations able to address specific stressors. We have introduced the practice of political engagement as a way of addressing systems-level pressures. Throughout this series, we have emphasized the need to ask for help from family, friends, peers, primary care providers, and mental health professionals. This article describes the benefits of Employee Assistance Programs, Physician Wellness Programs, positive psychology, and grounding behaviors as self-care strategies.

Art in debrief: a small-scale three-step narrative inquiry into the use of art to facilitate emotional debriefing for undergraduate nurses.

The context of the research was in a setting where undergraduate nursing students spend 50% of their programme in clinical practice and 50% in a higher education institute. Research participants were undertaking the adult branch of nursing education. • To explore emotional debriefing in relation to nursing practice.• To highlight the emotional concerns of the research participants regarding clinical placement.• To gain an insight into the use of art/creativity in emotional debriefing. Narrative inquiry was used to gain an insight into, and a deeper understanding of, how undergraduate nurses feel about their clinical placement experiences. The research was carried out in three stages: the art intervention, a diary account of the art intervention, and a follow-up face-to-face discussion between each participant and the researcher. The findings suggest the intervention helped the participants to articulate and process their emotions. All participants acknowledged the importance of the three-step approach, with follow-up to the art intervention. This research project has highlighted the potential value of a creative approach to emotional debriefing. A wider inclusion of the arts could be explored. Facilitation of emotional debriefing may help build resilience in undergraduate nurses. There is growing recognition for the need to foster resilience in undergraduate nursing student programmes.

Commentary: Art in debrief: a small-scale three-step narrative inquiry into the use of art to facilitate emotional debriefing for undergraduate nurses.

Commentary: Art in debrief: a small-scale three-step narrative inquiry into the use of art to facilitate emotional debriefing for undergraduate nurses.

Trauma-Informed Police Responses to Rape Victims

ABSTRACTRape victims can benefit from trauma-informed approaches when reporting rape to police. Police interviewing skill can prevent survivor re-victimization while eliciting useful crime statements. However, rape myth acceptance and police culture may pose obstacles to a trauma-informed approach. Client empowerment, demystification, trigger reduction, and expressed concern for victim safety can be implemented by police agencies. Interdisciplinary collaboration, combating sexual harassment, gender balancing, emotional debriefing of officers, accountability to victims, new reporting methods, and advanced training protocols are elements of a trauma-informed approach.

Implementing Emotional Debriefing in Pediatric Clinical Education

Challenging situations and intense emotions are inherent to clinical practice. Failure to address these emotions has been associated with health care provider burnout. One way to combat this burnout and increase resilience is participation in emotional debriefing. Although there are many models of emotional debriefings, these are not commonly performed in clinical practice. We provide a guide for implementing emotional debriefing training utilizing the American Academy of Pediatrics Resilience Curriculum into clinical training programs, with a focus on preparing senior residents and fellows to act as debriefing facilitators. Senior residents and fellows can provide in-the-moment emotional debriefing which allows for greater health care provider participation, including medical students and other pediatric trainees. Training of senior residents and fellows may allow more frequent emotional debriefing and in turn may help to improve the resilience of pediatricians when they face challenging situations in clinical practice.

Definition, assessment and rate of psychotherapy side effects.

Psychotherapy is often seen as a first line treatment, because patients and therapists consider this mode of treatment harmless in comparison, for instance, to drug treatment. This assumption is supported by the fact that there are only limited scientific reports on psychotherapy side effects (1,2). There is, however, some evidence which suggests that psychotherapy can have frequent or serious negative consequences, like all effective treatments (3–5). There are several reasons why awareness of psychotherapy side effects is limited and research on this issue is insufficient. First, the psychotherapist is the “producer” of treatment and therefore responsible, if not liable, for all negative effects, which results in a perceptional bias towards positive rather than negative effects (6). Second, psychotherapy does not only focus on symptoms but also on social behavior, so that the spectrum of possible negative effects is much broader than in pharmacotherapy (7). Third, there is even no consensus on what to call negative: for instance, when evaluating a manuscript on psychotherapy side effects, a reviewer wrote: “a divorce can be both positive and negative, and crying in therapy can reflect a painful experience but can also be a positive and therapeutic event”. Fourth, there is a lack of differentiation between side effects and therapy failure or deterioration of illness (8). Fifth, there are no generally accepted instruments for the assessment of psychotherapy side effects and no rules on how to plan scientific studies or monitor side effects in randomized controlled clinical trials (2).

The stress of post-disaster body handling and victim identification work.

Personnel involved with the recovery and identification of bodies following the Mount Erebus aircrash were interviewed and tested. They gave information about the stressors of the assignment and their reactions to them. The outcome revealed that about a third of the subjects experienced some transient problems initially, and about one-fifth after three months. At a 20-month follow-up there was still some evidence of subjects being under stress. In this study, disaster stress was seen as a complex interaction between environmental and task stressors, job competency, perceptual and emotional defenses, management and follow-up support. It was suggested that levels of stress might be reduced if emotional de-briefing were introduced as a routine matter, alongside logistic de-briefing at the end of any similar operation. The procedure would help to ventilate any negative feelings there might be and to offer additional help should it be needed.