PhD; are professors, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Vigo, As Lagoas, Ourense, Spain.
MSW; are professors, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Vigo, As Lagoas, Ourense, Spain.
Health Soc Work. 2022 Oct 29;47(4):244-252. doi: 10.1093/hsw/hlac026.
As a result of secondary exposure to traumatic material, social workers may experience vicarious trauma. However, the analysis of this variable among social workers is scarce. The Vicarious Trauma Scale (VTS) is a brief instrument designed to measure the stress consequence of shared trauma. This study aims to examine the psychometrics of the VTS in a sample of 448 social workers from Spain. The results from the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) indicated that the VTS has satisfactory psychometric properties. Different indices of internal consistency supported the reliability of the VTS. Both EFA and CFA revealed the existence of two factors, corresponding to the cognitive and affective consequences of secondary exposure to trauma. Finally, the correlations of the VTS with other relevant and well-known job variables (workload, work-family conflict, detachment, supervisor support, burnout, and engagement) followed the expected pattern, and the VTS differentiated the social workers by their trauma caseload. Therefore, the VTS can be considered an adequate screening method of social workers' vicarious trauma, and its application recommended to examine the possible risk and protective factors and consequences.
由于二次接触创伤性材料，社会工作者可能会经历替代性创伤。然而，针对社会工作者这一变量的分析却很少。替代性创伤量表（VTS）是一种用于测量共享创伤应激后果的简短工具。本研究旨在检验西班牙 448 名社会工作者样本中 VTS 的心理测量学特性。探索性和验证性因素分析（EFA 和 CFA）的结果表明，VTS 具有良好的心理测量学特性。不同的内部一致性指标支持了 VTS 的可靠性。EFA 和 CFA 都揭示了存在两个因素，分别对应于二次暴露于创伤的认知和情感后果。最后，VTS 与其他相关且知名的工作变量（工作量、工作-家庭冲突、疏离感、主管支持、倦怠和投入）的相关性符合预期模式，并且 VTS 根据创伤案例量区分了社会工作者。因此，VTS 可以被认为是一种评估社会工作者替代性创伤的有效筛查方法，建议应用它来检查可能的风险和保护因素以及后果。
