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Vulnerability and Resilience in a Group Intervention with Hospital Personnel during Exposure to Extreme and Prolonged War Stress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2012

Yuval Palgi ,
Menachem Ben-Ezra  and
Chaya Possick
Yuval Palgi*
Affiliation:
Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Menachem Ben-Ezra
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, Israel
Chaya Possick
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, Israel
*
Correspondence: Yuval Palgi, PhD Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel E-mail: ypalgi@research.haifa.ac.il
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Abstract

The current study presents a pilot demonstration of a new therapeutic procedure to mitigate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The pilot took place during the Second Lebanon War. Vulnerability and resilience statements, as well as post-traumatic symptoms, were measured among special army administrative staff (SAAS) who worked in a hospital setting during extreme and prolonged war stress. All 13 soldiers in the unit studied participated in seven group therapy intervention sessions. It was hypothesized that shifting the focus of therapeutic intervention from the scenes of the events to the personal and professional narratives of preparing for the event would change the content of the soldiers’ narratives. It was believed that subtracting the number of positive statements from the number of negative statements would yield increasingly higher “resilience scores” during and after the war. It also was believed that such a change would be reflected in reduction of post-traumatic symptoms. As expected, the participants showed a decrease in vulnerability and an increase in resilience contents, as well as a decrease in traumatic symptoms during and after the war. These findings may reflect the effects of the ceasefire, the mutually supportive attitude of the participants, and the therapeutic interventions.

Keywords

hospitalimpactinterventionPTSDpost-traumatic stress disorderresiliencestresssymptomstraumawar
Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 103 - 108
Copyright
Copyright Palgi © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2010

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