Examination of the relationship between secondary traumatic stress and psychological resilience of humanitarian workers

Humanitarian aid workers who carry out humanitarian aid activities directly or indirectly experience traumatic events or witness traumatic events while providing support to and delivering aid to people in need. Regarding this situation, researches conducted on humanitarian aid workers reveal that these people have significant effects on their secondary traumatic stress levels and psychological resilience. Considering the difficult working conditions of humanitarian aid workers, it becomes necessary to closely investigate the relationship between the secondary traumatic stress that occurs as a result of contact with the people they interact with and the psychological resilience levels of the workers. Despite this requirement, the number of studies on individuals working in the field of humanitarian aid is quite limited. In this study, the relations between secondary traumatic stress levels and psychological resilience of adults who are Humanitarian Aid Workers were examined. In order to answer the research questions, t test, ANOVA (one-way analysis of variance), correlation coefficient and regression analysis were calculated. The research was conducted with 89 participants between the ages of 18-40, who worked in the field of humanitarian aid for different periods of time, had different educational backgrounds and marital status. The Turkish versions of the Personal Information Form, the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale and the Adult Resilience Scale were administered to the participants. According to the findings related to demographic variables; Secondary traumatic stress perceptions of women were found to be higher than men. As a result of the examination between age and arousal dimension, which is the sub-dimension of the secondary traumatic stress scale; The arousal score of the participants in the 18-25 age group is significantly higher than the score of the participants in the 36-40 age group. It can be stated that as age increases, the level of secondary traumatic stress decreases. In the study, it was concluded that as secondary Traumatic Stress increased, the total score of the Psychological Resilience Scale for Adults and sub- dimensions of structural style, perception of the future, family harmony, and self- perception decreased. In the findings, it was found that self-perception, one of the sub-dimensions of psychological resilience, had a significant predictive effect on secondary traumatic stress. As self-perception increases, secondary traumatic stress decreases. The data obtained supports the view that there is a relationship between the level of secondary traumatic stress and psychological resilience.