Building community and relational resilience in emergency units to prevent trauma and ill-mental health: a mixed methods study on psycho-educational-defusing training

Background: In the healthcare arena, emergency nurses may live intense and overwhelming events affecting their lived experiences and work and life meanings. Traumatic events, and prolonged-stress conditions can challenge not only the individuals’ quest for meaning in work but also their quest for meaning in life while also impairing the physical and mental health. In addition, no structural preventions programs are present in the healthcare system leaving nurses to cope with traumas and stress on their own. Methods: A wide range of evidence-based knowledge on the effectiveness of interventions to promote mental health after traumatic events are present in the literature, yet little is known about the effectiveness of prevention programs. In this study, we employed a mixed methods approach to improve the empirical understanding of the potential of a combination of psycho-educational-defusing training for ill-mental health prevention. Quantitative methods were used to undertake a retrospective evaluation of the psychological state (N = 222). In addition, qualitative methods were used understand traumas and coping strategies of nurses via autobiographies (n = 26). Lastly, prospective focus groups examined participants of the psycho-educational defusing intervention administered (n = 61). Results: Findings revealed different forms of experiencing grief and trauma. Prospective analysis of the training revealed favourable insights according to which defusing intervention foster community and relational resilience representing an in situ resource for trauma and mental-ill health prevention. Conclusion: Results support the formal implementation of continuous prevention, building relational support, and coping strategies as keys to recovery and preventing traumas.