Gaza nurses after war: are they traumatized?

Abstract

Studies related to trauma among nurses in Palestine are not available, but few studies about PTSD among Palestinian adolescents and other groups have been conducted. This study examines the relationship between exposure to war stress and posttraumatic symptoms among nurses in all Gaza hospitals after the Israeli war on Gaza. All available hospital nurses who were exposed to war stress (n= 1130) were assessed for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms one year after the war between Israel and Gaza erupted. Arabic version of Impact Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was used in this study with a mean score of 35 as cut-off point for severe posttraumatic symptoms in nurses. High levels of PTSD symptoms were found in 69.4% of nurses. The most frequent symptoms of trauma subscales appears to be “Intrusion”(mean= 15.5) followed by “Avoidance”(mean= 14.9), and then “Hyper-arousal”(mean= 11.4). These findings show that nurses suffered from severe posttraumatic symptoms after exposure to prolonged war stress. This level of trauma among nurses warrants intervention programs to reduce stress and trauma among Gaza nurses after the war.