As we all know, work­ing in rur­al and remote health can be incred­i­bly reward­ing work. It can also be a unique­ly chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. We can be exposed to many things that can lead to increased vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to trau­ma, such as cul­ture shock, social iso­la­tion, weath­er extremes or trau­mat­ic clin­i­cal events. 

Trau­ma is a person’s emo­tion­al response to a dis­tress­ing expe­ri­ence. They are usu­al­ly expe­ri­ences that pose a sig­nif­i­cant threat to a person’s phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal well­be­ing and are often sud­den or unpre­dictable. Trau­mat­ic events are com­mon, with up to 70% of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion like­ly to expe­ri­ence a trau­mat­ic event in their lifetime.¹

As a rur­al and remote health work­er, it is even more like­ly you will be exposed to a poten­tial­ly trau­mat­ic event. For exam­ple, peo­ple liv­ing in rur­al and remote areas are three times more like­ly to die because of a vehi­cle-relat­ed injury than in the city.²

These trau­mat­ic events can be chal­leng­ing, as the car­ing con­nec­tion that we as health work­ers estab­lish with patients is ampli­fied by pos­si­bly hav­ing long-stand­ing or close con­nec­tions with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, such as friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers or colleagues.

That con­nec­tion is often one of the more reward­ing aspects of the job. Still, it is unde­ni­able that you, as a health work­er, will be at the front line dur­ing trau­mat­ic events.

Exam­ples of trau­mat­ic events in rur­al and remote health set­tings can include assault or vio­lence against us as health work­ers; assault or vio­lence to oth­ers or the clin­ic, e.g. lock­down; repeat­ed or unex­pect­ed expo­sure to deceased peo­ple; work­place trau­ma such as vehi­cle inci­dents involv­ing col­leagues or peo­ple you are close to; or hear­ing dis­clo­sure (and know­ing per­pe­tra­tors), e.g. child sex­u­al abuse.

Expe­ri­enc­ing some lev­el of psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress fol­low­ing expo­sure to trau­mat­ic events such as the ones described above can be con­sid­ered a nor­mal response to abnor­mal events. How­ev­er, not every­one exposed to the same event will be emo­tion­al­ly affect­ed in the same way, and not every­one will have long-last­ing effects.

Why did we devel­op these resources?

Our trau­ma resources were designed in response to a grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the need to bet­ter sup­port remote and rur­al health work­ers through these trau­mat­ic events. 

We reg­u­lar­ly receive calls on the Bush Sup­port Line and through our many con­ver­sa­tions with remote health work­places about people’s expe­ri­ences of trau­ma, we saw a need to pro­vide a diverse range of oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­port work­ers after a trau­mat­ic event. 

Sad­ly, we reg­u­lar­ly hear health work­ers nor­mal­is­ing these trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences as a nor­mal part of liv­ing and work­ing in rur­al or remote environments.

This nor­mal­i­sa­tion inval­i­dates the expe­ri­ence, can be an unhealthy cop­ing strat­e­gy and can neg­a­tive­ly impact the heal­ing journey.

So we want­ed to cre­ate resources that enabled work­ers to improve their under­stand­ing of what they were expe­ri­enc­ing and recog­nise strate­gies to bet­ter sup­port them­selves, oth­ers and their work­places through such events. 

Our trau­ma resources include an intro­duc­to­ry tip sheet to under­stand­ing trau­ma and where to go for sup­port, a more detailed book­let that explores how to sup­port your­self and oth­ers fol­low­ing a trau­mat­ic event, and the new inter­ac­tive online course which pro­vides more detail and prac­ti­cal strate­gies. All resources can be accessed at crana​.org​.au/​w​e​l​l​being

What’s involved in the Sup­port­ing your­self and oth­ers after trau­mat­ic events online course?

This inter­ac­tive online course has been designed by men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als with remote expe­ri­ence, specif­i­cal­ly for the rur­al and remote health work­force. It helps work­ers to iden­ti­fy trau­ma and under­stand the com­mon respons­es, con­sid­er­ing their unique pro­fes­sion­al con­text. Fur­ther­more, this course dis­cuss­es ways to sup­port your­self and oth­ers towards heal­ing, how work­places can sup­port their work­ers fol­low­ing a trau­mat­ic event and when to seek pro­fes­sion­al support.

The course details a range of prac­ti­cal strate­gies and real-life scenarios.

For more infor­ma­tion about the trau­ma resources, con­tact wellbeing@​crana.​org.​au

Ref­er­ences
1. Knip­scheer et al., (2020). Preva­lence of Poten­tial­ly Trau­mat­ic Events, Oth­er Life Events and Sub­se­quent Reac­tions Indica­tive of Post­trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der in the Nether­lands: A Gen­er­al Pop­u­la­tion Study Based on the Trau­ma Screen­ing Ques­tion­naire. Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Envi­ron­men­tal Research and Pub­lic Health. 17(5): 1725.

2. Mason HM, Ran­dall J, Leg­gat PA, Voak­lan­der D, Franklin RC, (2022). Com­par­ing rur­al traf­fic safe­ty in Cana­da and Aus­tralia: a scop­ing review of the lit­er­a­ture. Rur­al and remote health; 22(4): 1 – 12.