Abstracts Category : Other

Secondary Traumatic Stress, Compassion Fatigue, and Burnout:How Working In Correctional Settings Affects Mental HealthProviders

by Nykia S Johnson

Over the last three decades, there has been a sharpincrease in the number of people incarcerated within the UnitedStates. A significant number of those incarcerated have beendiagnosed with a mental health disorder. Subsequently, as theincarceration rate rises, so does the need for qualified mentalhealth professionals who are able to treat mentally ill prisoners.Correctional mental health providers work in very dangerous,oppressive, and often-chaotic settings, with very little controlover their environment. They must address daily episodes ofviolence and threats from inmates with histories of murder, rape,and assault, while still maintaining their ability to engage in atherapeutic relationship. They must be able to address a wide arrayof psychiatric and behavioral issues exhibited by the inmates,including acute psychosis, chronic depression, bipolar disorder,and various personality disorders, while simultaneously developinga constructive treatment plan. Additionally, many inmates haveexperienced extreme cases of trauma, often sharing vividdescriptions of abuse and suffering. These combined factors caneventually contribute to the development of secondary traumaticstress, compassion fatigue, and burnout amongst correctional mentalhealth providers. This research will examine how correctionalmental health providers cope with the effects of working with theprisoner population and how it affects their own mental health.This research is specifically interested in how trauma exposuremanifests in the form of Secondary Traumatic Stress amongstcorrectional mental health staff.Advisors/Committee Members: Russell, Mark (Committee Chair).