Interventions to reduce post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in health care professionals from 2011 to 2021: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES: This scoping review aimed to describe available interventions for decreasing (post-traumatic stress disorder) PTSD symptoms among healthcare professionals in hospital care. METHOD: A scoping review was conducted following Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest were searched for original research published in English from 2011 to 2021, on 8 July 2021. We included studies that described interventions that focused on reducing the PTSD symptoms of healthcare professionals. A narrative synthesis was adopted to synthesise the data. RESULTS: A total of eight studies out of 2558 articles were identified. Six used a quantitative study design and two adopted qualitative methods. cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness-based interventions were the most commonly adopted. Most studies used a combination of different intervention strategies. Trauma-related knowledge, emotion regulation and relaxation skill training, and psychological support from peers and psychologists were three core intervention components. The duration ranged from 2 weeks to 6 months. Healthcare professionals who participated in training programmes reported both positive experiences and suggestions for the improvement of PTSD-reducing interventions in their qualitative feedback. CONCLUSIONS: The scoping review provides a practical summary of the intervention characteristics for reducing the PTSD symptoms of healthcare professionals. Hospitals and managers could use the overview of interventions to assist healthcare professionals with PTSD symptoms. More research investigating the effects of PTSD symptom-reducing interventions for healthcare professionals with appropriate follow-up assessments is needed in the future.