Title: What is Vicarious Trauma | AHU Online
Headings: Vicarious Trauma: Information, Prevention and Resources
Vicarious Trauma: Information, Prevention and Resources
What Is Vicarious Trauma?
Examples of Vicarious Trauma
How to Identify Vicarious Trauma
How to Address Vicarious Trauma
Vicarious Trauma and the AHU Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Recommended Readings
Sources

Content: Hearing these accounts often evokes in caregivers a similar but muted response to the trauma that the patient experienced. The vicarious trauma they feel can cause the caregiver’s worldview to shift; it may also lead to “compassion fatigue” and burnout. Compassion fatigue occurs when caregivers spend so much time assisting victims of trauma that they have no time to care for themselves. It causes physical and emotional exhaustion, but, unlike vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue doesn’t cause symptoms of trauma or a negative change in a person’s worldview. Examples of Vicarious Trauma
A nurse educator observing interactions between patients and nurses in emergency rooms notices that new nurses are “excited, enthusiastic and engaged with patients,” as the Association of American Medical Colleges notes. By contrast, the nurses who have 20 to 30 years of work experience appear detached from their patients, as if they are “going through the motions” and “have built walls to avoid the hurt” of witnessing their suffering and trauma. The term “compassion fatigue” is ill suited to describe this situation because the veteran nurses haven’t lost their compassion or desire to help people. Instead, they are experiencing “professional emotional saturation,” which combines symptoms of burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Burnout originates externally: