Effectiveness of emergency department staff coping post implementation of a debriefing educational session

Purpose: Emergency Department (ED) staff members encounter many traumatic events (cardiac arrests, trauma, child abuse, sexual abuse, violence, etc.) throughout their careers. These traumatic events can be emotionally and physically challenging on staff members. Not all EDs have a formal debriefing program in place to assist staff members to cope with difficult situations that they may experience. How susceptible are ED staff members to adopt or develop negative coping mechanisms post traumatic event without a debriefing program? Methodology: A survey was distributed to all 60 ED staff members (comprised of MD, PA, CRNP, RN, ED tech, and secretary) at a Satellite ED in Southern New Jersey to evaluate the current effectiveness of coping. An educational session on coping mechanisms was presented to staff members, with a post-survey to follow the educational session to evaluate learning and effectiveness of new methods of coping. Results: The project in terms of: staff members understanding the importance and knowing how to create a healing environment for each other at work and home was not found to be effective. Evaluation of recognizing the difference between positive and negative coping mechanisms and recognizing how negative coping carries over into home life was found to be effective based off of the free text responses provided on the survey. A positive change in responses was used as the evaluation factor because the purpose of the project was a change in thinking and behavior of the participants. A direct response from the participants, stating that they did adopt the change, and that the change was effective, was the best way to measure while keeping the information anonymous. Implications for practice: The implications for clinical practice based off of the results of the study show that the debriefing educational session was effective in terms of providing a structured debriefing and improving coping mechanisms; implementation of a debriefing program should be considered. Staff recognition of burnout was higher post intervention, which leads to improvement of staff recognizing burnout post educational session. These changes can lead to implications for healthcare policy at this time. With future work on improving debriefing in the ED, policies specific for an ED debriefing process could be implemented. Potential implications of decreased cost to the hospital system due to more satisfied staff, leading to less turnover, improved patient care, safety and satisfaction could be achieved with improvement of the work environment for ED staff members.DNPIncludes bibliographical reference