Trauma-Informed Care and Nurses' Secondary Trauma, Burnout and Posttraumatic Growth: A Study With the Structural...

Trauma-informed care is recommended in healthcare settings. However, the understanding of its effects on nurses' well-being, including secondary trauma, burnout and posttraumatic growth, remains lacking.

This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that trauma-informed care is associated with nurses' negative outcomes, including secondary traumatic stress and burnout, and positive outcomes, including posttraumatic growth.

This is a cross-sectional study.

This study randomly recruited 291 nurses from two tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia. The online survey was sent to nurses in different clinical settings. Structural equation modelling analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to evaluate the hypothesised model.

The study revealed that trauma-informed care exhibited a significant negative association with secondary trauma (β = -0.351, p < 0.0001) and burnout (β = -0.535, p < 0.0001) and a positive association with posttraumatic growth (β = 0.281, p < 0.0001). Further, trauma-informed care is indirectly associated with posttraumatic growth through the mediation of burnout (β = 0.265, p < 0.0001) and secondary traumatic stress (β = -0.103, p = 0.003).

The study provides evidence that trauma-informed care is significantly associated with nurses' outcomes, including reducing secondary trauma and burnout and promoting posttraumatic growth. Therefore, implementing trauma-informed care training and integrating its principles into daily nursing practice may have a positive effect on nurses.