Vicarious Trauma, Compassion Fatigue and Moral Injury among Clinical Psychology Interns

Abstract

This study was done to examine the relationship between vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and moral injury among clinical psychology interns. Correlational research design was used to conduct the study. A sample of 300 clinical psychology interns, both male (n =111) and females (n= 189) aged between 24-27 years (M= 25.47, SD= 1.08), were selected from different public and private institutes of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore, by using non-probability purposive sampling. Self-report measures of vicarious trauma scale (Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008), compassion fatigue short- scale (Figley et al., 2006), and the moral injury symptoms scale-health professionals (Litz et al., 2009) were used to assess the research variables. The results of pearson product moment correlation revealed a significant positive association between vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress, burn out), moral injury and clinical cases per day, internship hours per day, while a significant negative relationship between age, clinical internship level, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress, burn out), and moral injury. The results of mediation analysis showed compassion fatigue to partially mediate the relationship between vicarious trauma and moral injury. Furthermore, there were significant differences between vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress, burn out) and moral injury across diagnosis of clients and clinical internships. Similarly, significant differences were found in burn out across gender and marital status. However no significant differences were found between vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress) and moral injury across gender and marital status.