Berättelser som förändrar: En kvantitativ studie om hur personal påverkas av att jobba med krigsskadade och torterade

Sammanfattning: The 69 participants of this study were Swedish personnel of various occupations, working at centers for war and torture survivors. The aim was to describe the personnel’s reactions from their work, their background (e.g. trauma prevalence, work situation), their attitude towards death, evil, and forgiveness and the relationships between these. The results of this study show that the participants had high levels of secondary stress and average levels of burnout and compassion satisfaction. Most of the workers experienced posttraumatic growth. More years in the field, meant higher levels of compassion fatigue and posttraumatic growth while number of hours per week of exposure to trauma narratives did not influence the psychological health of the trauma workers. The prevalence of personal trauma was very high. Those experiencing more fear and dejection from thoughts about human evil had more compassion fatigue. The majority of the group had changed their attitude towards evil as a result of their work. The results point to the importance of caring for all personnel working with trauma-survivors irrespective of hours per week of exposure to trauma narratives. Another implication of the results is that it is important to give the personnel opportunity to talk about their thoughts and feelings about human evil e.g. under supervision