Effect of Accelerated Recovery Program on Recovery from Secondary Traumatic Stress among Nurses

Background: Nurses have distressing experiences during care provision, especially end‑of‑life care, which might lead to secondary traumatic stress (STS). The Accelerated Recovery Program (ARP) intends to decrease STS and promote recovery from trauma. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of ARP on recovery from STS among nurses.Methods: The study was carried out in Narayana Medical College Hospital, India. A pretest–posttest design with control group was adopted for the study. In the present study, 120 nurses who had STS were recruited and allocated to the intervention and control groups. Data were collected using the Trauma Recovery Scale. ARP with routine activities was implemented for nurses in the intervention group and routine activities for nurses in the control group for 5 weeks. Posttests I (5th week), II (3rd month), III (6th month), IV (9th month), and V (12th month) were conducted. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results: A statistically significant difference was observed between the intervention and control groups in the mean score of trauma recovery (P < 0.001) (Z value: 0.102, 9.511, 9.483, 9.51, 9.439, and 9.471). The repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant difference in trauma recovery over a period of time among nurses (F: 201.54, P < 0.001) in the intervention (F: 101.126, P < 0.001) and control groups (F: 39.29, P < 0.001). Conclusions: The results show that ARP had a significant impact on the nurses and facilitated their recovery from trauma.