Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine the severity of vicarious trauma amongst medical workers at Kenyatta National Hospital. The objectives of the study were: to determine the severity of vicarious trauma among medical workers; to establish the relationship between vicarious trauma and socio-demographic factors of medical workers; to compare the incidences of vicarious trauma amongst medical workers; and to highlight the coping mechanisms of medical workers at Kenyatta National Hospital in light of vicarious trauma. Constructivist Self Development Theory was the adopted theoretical framework for the study and on the research methodology, a cross-sectional descriptive research design was used. A sample size of 130 respondents was involved in the study, selected via simple random sampling technique. Of the total respondents, 53.1% were female and 46.9% were male. As shown in figure 4.1, 27.7% were between 41-45 years old, 25.4% were between 31-35 years, 22.3% were between 36-40 years, 20.8% were between 26-30 years, and 2.3% were between 21-25 years old. On the level of education, 69.2% of the respondents had university education and 57.7% indicated being engaged/married, with 34.6% stating being single. On the professional level, 54.6% of the respondents were medical doctors whilst in terms of years of work experience, 43.8% had worked between 6-15 years. The results of the study established that 10.0% of the medical workers had high levels of vicarious trauma, 49.2% had moderate levels of vicarious trauma and 40.8% had low levels of vicarious trauma. The overall severity level of vicarious trauma was 31.3 (SD = 8.65). On the severity of compassion fatigue, 75.4% had low levels of compassion fatigue, 22.3% moderate level and 2.3% had high levels of compassion fatigue giving a mean of 19.83 (SD = 6.87). On the relationship between vicarious trauma and the socio-demographic factors, the findings showed that there was no association between vicarious trauma and gender (P = 0.22), age (P = 0.42), different departments of work (P = 0.49), and number of years worked or work experience (0.24). Association was found between vicarious trauma and other sociodemographic factors such as the level of education (P = 0.036), marital status of the medical workers (P = 0.000), and the different professional cadres (P = 0.045). In comparing vicarious trauma among the medical workers, the results showed that nurses had a mean 32.47 (SD = 9.86) and medical doctors had a mean of 30.19 (SD = 7.39). When it comes to compassion fatigue, nurses had a mean of 20.43 (SD = 6.75) whilst doctors had a mean of 19.26 (SD = 6.97). In terms of coping strategies, the respondents had a mean of 19.42 (SD = 2.87). Some of the coping strategies used by the respondents included praying/meditation/mindfulness, reading, sports or exercising, and peer support. This study recommends that continuous training and sensitization on vicarious trauma be conducted among the medical workers periodically by the hospital’s management, and the medical workers encouraged to adopt healthy coping mechanisms such praying/meditation/mindfulness, sports/exercising as well as going for personal psychotherapy where necessary.