Secondary traumatic stress and death anxiety in healthcare professionals: Moderating role of social support

Abstract

Background & Objective: It’s hard to deny the buffering impact of social support as it provides much-needed assistance to counter untoward circumstances that individuals face in their daily life. By focusing on the moderating role of social support, the present investigation studied the relationship between secondary traumatic stress and death anxiety that healthcare professionals encounter in their regular work life. Method: Through a cross-sectional correlational design, 200 participants were included from various hospitals in Lahore (from June-August, 2022) by employing a non-probability purposive sampling technique. They provided basic sociodemographic information along with their responses on self-reported questionnaires for the current investigation. Results: Results were analyzed through SPSS 21 which indicated that secondary traumatic stress had a positive association with death anxiety, unlike social support which had a negative relationship with death anxiety. Findings also revealed social support as a significant moderator for secondary traumatic stress and death anxiety. Conclusions: It can be concluded that increased social support could benefit healthcare professionals as it weakened the association between secondary traumatic stress and death anxiety. Other than academia and research, these findings have implications across a variety of professional settings including physical and mental healthcare professionals who can benefit from these indigenous findings. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.39.5.7254 How to cite this: Qayyum S, Tahir A, Younas F. Secondary traumatic stress and death anxiety in healthcare professionals: Moderating role of social support. Pak J Med Sci. 2023;39(5):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.39.5.7254 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.