Pages 448-451 in S. Chatwood, P. Orr and Tiina Ikaheimo, eds. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Yellowknife, Canada, July 11-16, 2009. Securing the IPY Legacy: from Research to Action. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2010; 69 (Suppl 7).
Pages 448-451 in S. Chatwood, P. Orr and Tiina Ikaheimo, eds. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Yellowknife, Canada, July 11-16, 2009. Securing the IPY Legacy: from Research to Action. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2010; 69 (Suppl 7).
Objectives: Increase and enhance awareness of the impacts of witnessing suffering and the inherent risks of vicarious trauma in health care. Provide information about the experiences of health care professionals' transcendence of suffering, explanatory suggestions regarding implications of research and linkages of research and clinical experiences.
Study design: Phenomenology.
Methods: Qualitative methodological interviewing.
Results: Four overarching themes were identified: (1) impact of witnessing suffering; (2) meaning-making and connection with something larger; (3) maintaining a sense of multiple dualities; and (4) evolution over time.
Conclusions: The study's findings about the participants' perspectives and direct experiential knowledge of their experiences of witnessing suffering are consistent with Tedeschi and Calhoun's model (1) of post-traumatic growth developed for those directly involved in traumatic life experiences. The model demonstrates how loss associated with an experience is transformed and increases in value in the present and future. This transformation of values is the consequence of struggles and challenges that result from the exposure to the trauma and perhaps because of that experience. This understanding allows for changes in behaviour that effectively ward off future distress, while engaging in previously unconsidered or untried activities or providing rewards previously unattained. Those affected by difficult/challenging life events, whether experienced by an individual, a witness or a caregiver, may feel wiser and blessed, paradoxically as a result of experiencing loss or suffering or of witnessing loss or suffering.