2008 Volume 31 Issue 5 Pages 5_49-5_56
This study was aimed to clarify traumatic stress of nurses who had witnessed patients' actual or attempted suicide at their psychiatric hospitals. A questionnaire survey based on the Brief Scales for Coping Profile (BSCP) and the Impact of Event Scale, Revised (IES-R) was conducted among 458 nurses working for psychiatric hospitals in Okayama and Hiroshima Prefectures. The survey identified 267 nurses (65.3%) who had witnessed their patients' actual or attempted suicide, of whom 25 (9.4%) were at high risk of PTSD on the IES-R scale. Recognition of the presence of certain support was found to be a factor related to the development of PTSD. Their answers demonstrated that the greatest support had actually come from the hospital staff, and indicated "assistance of (or consultation with) someone in an objective, neutral position" as the type of support they expected from the workplace. These results suggest that nurses who witnessed their patients' actual or attempted suicide require support from the hospital staff as well as someone able to assist (or listen to) them and their nursing teams from a neutral standpoint.
