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Psychosocial emergency care personnel provide voluntary psychological support directly after potentially traumatic events. During emergency responses, they experience challenging situations. However, previous quantitative studies suggest that the psychological burden of psychosocial emergency care personnel does not exceed that of the general population. This study aimed to obtain an in-depth analysis of the volunteers' psychological reactions and resources regarding emergency responses. 36 psychosocial emergency care volunteers (12 pre-training, 12 post-training, 12 experienced) were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. The volunteers were selected from previous cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on secondary traumatization in psychosocial emergency care volunteers. A qualitative content analysis of the transcribed interviews was performed following the principles of summary and inductive category development. We identified 845 codes which we summarized in three overarching categories: (I) reactions to emergency responses, (II) psychosocial emergency care work related resources and (III) experiences and changes in life perspective related to working in psychosocial emergency care. The volunteers described both emotional and physical reactions to emergency responses. While they perceived social support as a key coping resource and reported a greater appreciation of their own lives and their families due to their work, many volunteers also felt increased concern that something could happen to them. The volunteers' reactions and symptoms are reasonable responses to stress and not indicative of serious impairment. Nevertheless, emergency responses are both emotionally and physically challenging. Volunteers should be carefully selected, receive regular supervision and determine the frequency of emergency responses., Author(s): Anja Greinacher [sup.1] [sup.2] , Anna Cranz [sup.1] , Julia Jenzer [sup.1] , Alexander Nikendei [sup.1] [sup.3] , Renate Kottke [sup.4] , Jürgen Wiesbeck [sup.4] , Hans-Christoph Friederich [sup.1] [...]

Aims and objectives: To test a mediating effect of compassion satisfaction on the relationship between personality traits (Big Five) and intent to leave. Background: Nursing professionals work in high‐stress environments and exhibit more emotional distress and mental health disorders than other hospital professionals. This translates to increased intention to leave their profession. Evidence suggests that compassion satisfaction reduces intention to leave. Research also indicates that personality factors are associated with compassion satisfaction and intent to leave. Design: Using a cross‐sectional design, we collected data from 536 nurses in a maximum‐care hospital in Germany via questionnaires; the analyses included 518 participants. Method: We applied the structural equation model and followed the STROBE checklist. Results: 30% of our study participants reported high intent to leave. Compassion satisfaction mediated the relationship between agreeableness and intent to leave. Openness to experience and neuroticism had positive direct effects on intent to leave. Conclusions: The results suggest that high compassion satisfaction levels may decrease intention to leave levels. Personality traits impact compassion satisfaction and intention to leave. Relevance to Clinical Practice: Nursing professionals' compassion satisfaction needs to be improved, for example by resilience training. As personality factors remain relatively stable over time, caregivers need to consider them when identifying appropriate areas of work and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychosocial emergency care personnel form an important first responder subgroup, in which trained volunteers provide psychological first aid to accident and trauma survivors, their relatives, eye witnesses, bystanders and first responders themselves. This is the first longitudinal study to assess psychological burden due to secondary traumatisation and relevant resilience factors in psychosocial emergency care personnel. We asked 100 German psychosocial emergency care workers to assess their feeling of preparedness and resilience factors prior training. After training, when participants had worked emergency responses, we assessed secondary traumatisation. Overall, the level of secondary traumatisation was sub‐clinical (M = 37.50, SD = 5.35) after training and reported resilience factor levels were high. Three regression analyses were conducted to examine the moderation effect of preparedness on specific expertise (R2 = 0.479, p < 0.001), performance competence (R2 = 0.419, p = 0.002) and inner attitude (R2 = 0.336, p = 0.002) in regard to the relationship between resilience factors and secondary traumatisation. Feeling prepared and competent for emergency responses were protective factors. Practical implications include the following: volunteers should not take part in emergency responses if they are under excessive stress; the volunteers' resilience factors should be taken into account; emergency response training should promote the feeling of preparedness in specific expertise and performance competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aimed to identify and compare age stereotypes of registered nurses and supervisors in clinical inpatient settings. Design: Generic qualitative study using half‐standardized interviews. Method: Nineteen face‐to‐face interviews and five focus groups (N = 50) were conducted with nurses of varying levels at a hospital of maximum medical care in Germany between August and November 2018 and were subjected to structured qualitative content analysis. Results: Reflecting the ageing process and cooperation in mixed‐age teams, nursing staff and supervisors defined similar age stereotypes towards older and younger nurses reminiscent of common generational labels 'Baby Boomers' and Generations X. Their evaluation created an inconsistent and contradictory pattern differing to the respective work context and goals. Age stereotypes were described as both potentially beneficial and detrimental for the individual and the cooperation in the team. If a successfully implemented diversity management focuses age stereotypes, negative assumptions can be reduced and cooperation in mixed‐age teams can be considered beneficial. Conclusion: Diversity management as measures against age stereotypes and for mutual acceptance and understanding should include staff from various hierarchical levels of the inpatient setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staff shortages are a global problem in the nursing profession. Negative beliefs about older workers may have detrimental effects on the development and performance capacity of an aging workforce. To date, little is known about the impact of age stereotypes and potential factors on nurses' intent to leave (ITL). Therefore, the aim of our study was to assess intention to leave and potential predictors (eg, sociodemographic characteristics and age stereotypes) in a large representative sample of nurses in a German university hospital setting. A total of 423 nurses at the University Hospital of Heidelberg participated in a cross-sectional questionnaire study assessing sociodemographic data, age stereotypes using the "Beliefs About Older Workers" questionnaire, and participants' intentions to leave and give up their profession. Questionnaires were returned by 423 nurses (13.7% response rate). The results revealed that negative age stereotypes were highly prevalent. Significant correlations between age and negative age stereotypes were found, indicating that the younger the nurses were, the more negative their age stereotypes were. Most nurses with negative age stereotypes had no intention to leave their profession; however, the majority of nurses could not imagine working in the profession until they retired. Despite the low response rate, the results of the current study suggest that organizational and societal measures to reduce age stereotypes should be directed at newcomers and young nurses to retain them in the profession in the long term., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Objective: A feasibility study to determine whether oncology patients in the acute phase of their disease can participate in and benefit from a functional relaxation (FR) program., Methods: A group intervention (N=14) over 10 sessions following the FR functional relaxation stress manual; measurement of psychological distress by a pre-post questionnaire survey., Results: The intervention appears well suited to help psychologically distressed patients process their symptoms and cope with stressors. There was some indication that general well-being increased and hyperarousal decreased.Overall well-being increased; hyperarousal decreased., Discussion: The intervention was well accepted, but regular participation was not always possible due to the disease. The body therapy approach and group setting seemed particularly helpful. Due to the heavy physical strain on the patients, the structure of the groups as well as individual exercises were adapted individually., Conclusion: The body-based interventions made unconscious elements accessible and thus to work with therapeutically to a limited extent. Further research is needed to show the effectiveness of this functional relaxation group intervention., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)