Coping strategies in health care providers as second victims: A systematic review

Abstract

Aim To analyze personal and organizational strategies described in the literature for dealing with the second victim phenomenon among healthcare providers. Background The second victim phenomenon involves many associated signs and symptoms, which can be physical, psychological, emotional, or behavioral. Personal and organizational strategies have been developed to deal with this phenomenon. Materials and methods A systematic review was carried out in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases, searching for evidence published between 2010 and 2019 in Spanish, English, German, and Portuguese. Results Seven hundred and eighty‐three articles were identified. After eliminating duplicates, applying inclusion and exclusion criteria and critical analysis tools of the Joanna Briggs Institute, 16 research articles were included: 10 quantitative studies (design: descriptive, correlational, systematic, or integrative review) and six qualitative studies (descriptive, systematic review). There are several different personal and organizational strategies for dealing with the second victim phenomenon. Among these, peer support and learning from adverse events are highly valued. In personal strategies stands out the internal analysis of the adverse event that the professional performs to deal with the generated negative feelings. In organizational strategies, the most valued are second victim support programs with rapid response teams and made up of peers. Conclusions The main organizational coping strategies for tackling this phenomenon are online programs in countries such as the United States, Spain, and other European countries. Formal evaluation of these programs and research is required in Latin America. Implications for nursing and health policies Adequately coping with the second victim phenomenon allows health professionals and organizations to learn from adverse events. Furthermore, by supporting health professionals who suffer from the second victim phenomenon, the organization takes care of its most valuable resource, its human capital. This contributes toward building a culture of healthcare quality in organizations, which will reduce adverse events in the future.

Second‐victim experience and support among nurses in mainland China

“…Peer support and learning from adverse events are highly prized (Kappes et al, 2021), and nurses have become the largest group in the programmes 'YouMatter' (Merandi et al, 2017) and 'RISE' (Edrees et al, 2016). However, most support resources have been established in the United States, and most hospitals and medical centres elsewhere in the world still lack organized support interventions (Busch et al, 2021;Kappes et al, 2021). Therefore, it is necessary to draw lessons from successful projects for application in However, this study has some limitations.…”

“…Recently, a great deal of supportive programmes, guidelines, toolkits and websites have been developed and applied to alleviate second-victim symptoms (Busch et al, 2021;Kappes et al, 2021;Quadrado et al, 2021). Peer support and learning from adverse events are highly prized (Kappes et al, 2021), and nurses have become the largest group in the programmes 'YouMatter' (Merandi et al, 2017) and 'RISE' (Edrees et al, 2016).…”

“…Recently, a great deal of supportive programmes, guidelines, toolkits and websites have been developed and applied to alleviate second-victim symptoms (Busch et al, 2021;Kappes et al, 2021;Quadrado et al, 2021). Peer support and learning from adverse events are highly prized (Kappes et al, 2021), and nurses have become the largest group in the programmes 'YouMatter' (Merandi et al, 2017) and 'RISE' (Edrees et al, 2016). However, most support resources have been established in the United States, and most hospitals and medical centres elsewhere in the world still lack organized support interventions (Busch et al, 2021;Kappes et al, 2021).…”

Second victim experience and support desire among nurses working at regional levels in China

“…Notwithstanding, it is of widespread knowledge that few support interventions for tackling health worker safety exist worldwide, and they often accompany various hidden challenges (e.g., lack of financial resources) (Busch et al, 2021; Edrees & Wu, 2021); hence, there seems to be much space for improvement in such programmes. Accordingly, both institutional leaders and policy makers should develop/apply educational/training programmes for health care workers on how to recover from PSIs, provide the necessary resources/support and form solid partnerships with health care workers (Kappes et al, 2021).…”

“…Although the second victim syndrome is becoming an increasingly complex issue for health care workers, leaders and institutions, it appears that health care decision makers and researchers have not sufficiently emphasized this topic among grassroots medical workers (Liu et al, 2010), despite them being regarded as the gatekeepers of patient safety (Kako & Kajiwara, 2020). Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all of how patient safety is reliant on health worker safety (Shaw et al, 2020) (Kappes et al, 2021).…”