Secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma: a validational study.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Trauma Studies

Background:

• Vicarious trauma (VT) and secondary traumatic stress (STS), or compassion fatigue, affect therapists working with trauma survivors.
• VT focuses on cognitive schemas, while STS emphasizes posttraumatic symptoms and burnout.
• Existing measures, the TSI Belief Scale (TSI-BSL) for VT and the Compassion Fatigue Self-Test (CFST) for STS, lack substantial psychometric validation and their association is unstudied.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the psychometric properties and association between measures of vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress.
• To investigate the concurrent validity and discriminant validity of the TSI Belief Scale and the Compassion Fatigue Self-Test for Psychotherapists.

Main Methods:

• 99 counselors specializing in sexual assault and domestic violence completed the TSI-BSL and CFST.
• Data analysis focused on concurrent validity, convergence with burnout and distress measures, and discriminant validity.
• The influence of personal interpersonal trauma history on scale scores was also assessed.

Main Results:

• Concurrent validity was demonstrated between the TSI-BSL and CFST.
• Both scales showed moderate convergence with burnout but useful discrimination, and strong convergence with general distress, maintaining adequate independent shared variance.
• Counselors with interpersonal trauma histories scored higher on the CFST, aligning with its focus on trauma symptomatology, but not on the TSI-BSL or burnout measures.

Conclusions:

• The TSI-BSL and CFST are valid and discriminative measures for assessing vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress, respectively.
• Secondary traumatic stress, as measured by the CFST, is associated with therapists' personal trauma histories.
• These findings support the use of distinct measures for VT and STS in clinical and research settings.