Assessment of vicarious post-traumatic stress in nurses caring for victims of sexual abuse in Thuthuzela Care Centres in KwaZulu-Natal
Authors:   , Hlomuka Nonhlanhla 
Published: August 2024

The aim of this study was to determine whether nurses working in Thuthuzela Care Centres experience vicarious post-traumatic stress. Thuthuzela is a Xhosa word which means comfort. The word comfort awakens feelings of warmth, freedom from emotional and physical concerns, safety, security, being pampered and above all reinforcing dignity, hope and positive expectations for the victims Thuthuzela Care Centres are one stop facilities that have been introduced as a critical part of South Africa’s anti –rape strategy. There have been a number of studies exploring vicarious post-traumatic stress for health care workers other than nurses caring for victims’ sexual abuse but little is known about the risk for nurses. A non-experimental descriptive survey design was used to assess vicarious post-traumatic stress of nurses caring for victims of sexual abuse who report to the Thuthuzela Care Centres in KwaZulu Natal. 6.Data was collected in this quantitative study through the administration of a questionnaire. The professional quality of life (ProQol) questionnaire was used to answer the research questions. In this study a convenience method of sampling was used. A convenience sampling is referred to as availability sampling and it involves the choice of readily available respondents for the study. The sample included all nurses working in Thuthuzela Care Centres irrespective of their category following repeated exposure and listening to different scenarios while executing their duty of caring for victims of sexual abuse in KwaZulu Natal. 10. The sample size was 31 nurses working in Thuthuzela Care Centres. The data collection instrument of this study measured all the aspects included in vicarious post-traumatic stress, secondary traumatic stress, compassion satisfaction and burnout. All of these being in line with the objectives of the study. Factor analysis with Promax rotation was applied to the 30 items measuring the three constructs (compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress) in order to elicit the latent structure that applies to the current study. The KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) measure of sampling adequacy yielded a relatively low value of .521 which was likely due to the limited sample size. It is, however, considered by some to be adequate and indicates adequacy of the data. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant thus indicating that the variables are related and therefore suitable for factor analysis. Rotation converged in 5 iterations. The reliability of compassion satisfaction and secondary traumatic stress are shown to be adequate. Cronbach’s alpha of .567 for burnout indicates that results need to be interpreted with a little caution Data was analysed using SPSS version 17. The data derived from this study revealed that a little over half of respondents 54.8% (n=17) working in Thuthuzela Care Centres are very often happy about nursing victims of sexual abuse. Less than a half 38.7% (n = 12), of respondents indicated that they are not productive at work because they are losing sleep related to traumatic experiences of the people they nurse. Less than a half of the respondents 45.2% (n=14) reported that they sometimes, have intrusive, and/or frightening thoughts related to caring for victims of sexual abuse. (p<.005). In this study the respondents were protected from any harm by a full explanation about the aim of the study, their rights to voluntarily participate and their freedom to withdraw from the study at any time during the study. This study attended the ethical principle related to right to fair treatment because ethical approval was sought from and granted by DUT Institutional Research Ethics Committee to the researcher before the research was commenced. In this study, the participants were not required to give their personal details to the researchers. The researcher used numbers to identify questionnaire distributed to the respondents. Recommendations Recommendations arising from this study are 22. (a) a mandatory programme of psychological intervention for the nurses is necessary. 23. (b) a psychologist should be readily available at the Thuthuzela Care Centres for counselling sessions, and 24. (c) all health districts should have Thuthuzela Care Centres. 25.Wellbeing of the nurses allocated to work in Thuthuzela Care Centres should be considered. Conclusion 26.Findings from this data can be used to strengthen awareness programs and emphasize self-care techniques to minimize vicarious trauma in nurses caring for victims of sexual abuse in Thuthuzela Care Centres. 27.Consistent training and ongoing discussions about signs of vicarious trauma are important for nurses and other health professionals caring for victims of sexual abuse