Understanding Traumatic Stress in Emergency Nurses: A Systematic Review

Details

• Personal Author:
  Amberson T ; Quarry C
• Description:
  Aims: To understand how emergency nurses experience traumatic stress and clarify the impact of traumatic stress on emergency nurses, patients, and healthcare organisations. Design: Systematic review without meta-analysis. Methods: Three hundred and eighty-three articles were screened with pre-specified criteria. Included articles represented primary research conducted with samples of emergency nurses only and described traumatic stress. We extracted (1) impacts on the emergency nurse, (2) impacts on patients and healthcare organisations, and (3) antecedents. Covidence was used for screening and data extraction, and the Joanna Briggs Institute Appraisal Checklists were used for quality assessment. Data sources: Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed, and PsycINFO were searched 13 July 23 and 16 September 24 for peer-reviewed articles published in English between 2010 and 2024. Results: Twelve studies conducted in seven countries were included. Traumatic stress has the potential to impact patient safety and satisfaction, care quality, absenteeism, turnover, and organisational commitment. Identified antecedents included specific populations, clinical events, workplace violence, work environment factors, and personal/interpersonal factors. Conclusion: Unavoidable antecedents could become points for organisational screening and secondary prevention. Modifiable antecedents like workplace violence could be targets for primary prevention. Implications for the profession/patient care: Organisations have a responsibility to support emergency nurses in preventing and managing occupational traumatic stress. System-level policies, interventions, and resources may mitigate the negative impacts of traumatic stress. Impact: Existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of traumatic stress in emergency nurses. This review clarifies how traumatic stress impacts emergency nurses, patients, and organisations, highlighting organisational/system-level intervention points. Traumatic stress harms emergency nurses, patients, and organisations. Organisations should focus on modifiable antecedents for prevention and screening resources. These findings challenge the idea of traumatic stress as an individual issue, emphasising the role of systems/organisations to provide safe work environments for the benefit of all. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Health Personnel Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Safety Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic Violence Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Accident And Emergency Mental Health Nurses Occupational Health Screening Screening Programs Systematic Reviews Trauma Traumatic Incident Stress Work Environment Workplace Violence

  More +
• ISSN:
  0309-2402
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Chicago Region [OSHA] ; Hawaii ; Minnesota ; San Francisco Region [OSHA] ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20070524
• Citation:
  J Adv Nurs 2025 Feb; :[Epub ahead of print]
• Email:
  amberson.taryn@gmail.com
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2025
• Performing Organization:
  University of Washington
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Advanced Nursing
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:fa399ebbea0bea38bd039af9ec4a654dc1f62cd7a61e2f93fed7796b450f31f76eab92346f1a5e118f5317c8a9a08a69d62deaa407ffb53047d36b882db75526
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/208719/cdc_208719_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 444.42 KB ]