Negative and Positive Consequences of Secondary Trauma Exposure Among Police Officers

Police officers belong to the occupational group that is particularly exposed to work related stress. As part of their official duties officers help people who have experienced traumatic situations in their lives. Long-term contact and helping trauma victims may on the one hand cause certain negative consequences in the form of secondary traumatic stress, and on the other, can be a source of positive changes, understood as secondary posttraumatic growth. The aim of the study is to determine the severity of negative and positive posttraumatic changes among police officers exposed to secondary trauma and their connections with sociodemographic variables, workload and history of one’s own trauma. The research also aims to determine the relationship between the negative and the positive consequences of secondary exposure to trauma. 520 police officers on duty and in contact with trauma victims took part in the research. The study used a survey specifically developed for this purpose and two standard measurement tools, i.e.: the Secondary Traumatic Stress Inventory and Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. The officers participating in the study displayed relatively low intensity of negative consequences of exposure to secondary trauma, as well as varying levels of positive posttraumatic changes — 40% of respondents showed a low, 34% an average and 26% a high degree of secondary growth. Sociodemographic variables and workload had little influence on the occurrence of both negative and positive consequences of secondary exposure to trauma. A factor that significantly differentiated the severity of secondary stress and growth was their own history of trauma. Moreover, the obtained results showed positive relations between secondary stress and secondary growth