Current situation and influencing factors of vicarious trauma among emergency trauma nurses in China: a latent profile analysis.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the latent profiles of vicarious trauma among emergency trauma nurses in China and examine the factors associated with these profiles.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional study.

SETTING

195 hospitals at Level 2 and above across 22 provincial-level administrative regions in China.

PARTICIPANTS

From January to March 2025, 930 emergency trauma nurses were recruited using a convenience sampling method (valid questionnaire response rate: 96.37%). All participants held a valid nursing practice certificate and had at least 1 year of trauma care experience.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Vicarious trauma, work engagement, stressor and coping style were measured using the Vicarious Traumatization Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, the Stressor Scale for Emergency Nurses and the Trait Coping Style Questionnaire, respectively.

RESULTS

Three latent profiles of vicarious trauma were identified: low vicarious trauma group (35.38%), moderate vicarious trauma group (52.37%) and high vicarious trauma group (12.25%). The entropy value was 0.897, indicating good classification accuracy. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that gender, psychological trauma training, stressors, work engagement, positive coping and negative coping were significantly associated with the latent profiles of vicarious trauma (all p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Emergency trauma nurses exhibit heterogeneous patterns of vicarious trauma. Male nurses, those with high stressor exposure, low work engagement, negative coping styles and no prior psychological trauma training may be at greater risk. Nursing managers should develop targeted interventions for these high-risk groups to mitigate vicarious trauma.