Second Victims in Intensive Care—Emotional Stress and Traumatization of Intensive Care Nurses in Western Austria after Adverse Events during the Treatment of Patients

Abstract

Intensive care nurses are exposed to many exceptional situations which have a high likelihood of resulting in second victim traumatization. As proximal psychosocial support is considered to be a main source of coping, wide-spread implementation of effective psychosocial peer support programs ought to be applied by medical organizations. Patient safety measures such as proactive and reactive clinical risk management (e.g., CIRS) should be linked to second victim support.