Homepage > Research abstracts > Examining the factors contributing to and inhibiting resilience among medical and para-medical staff working in acute rooms (sexual assault treatment centers)
Examining the factors contributing to and inhibiting resilience among medical and para-medical staff working in acute rooms (sexual assault treatment centers)
Researchers: Shani Pitcho1
- Department of Social Work, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Background: Sexual assault acute-care centers are designed to provide immediate, multidisciplinary, and trauma-informed care for survivors of sexual assault. Within this framework, staff working in these centers are exposed to a demanding work environment characterized by high exposure to severe traumatic content, requiring both professional and psychological resilience. However, little is known about the conditions that shape resilience among these teams.
Objectives: To develop a holistic model for understanding the factors that shape resilience among staff working in sexual assault acute-care centers.
Method: The study was based on constructivist grounded theory methodology. Forty-one semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with physicians and social workers working in six hospital-based sexual assault acute-care centers in Israel.
Findings: Staff resilience emerged as a multidimensional “puzzle” comprising three central domains: institutional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Each domain included several factors that could either strengthen or undermine resilience, depending on their quality, meaning, and interaction with other factors.
Conclusions: Resilience in acute work with survivors of sexual assault is not the product of a single factor, but rather of a cumulative and dynamic configuration of conditions. These conditions may either support staff members’ ability to sustain this work or contribute to erosion and burnout.
Recommendations: Policy should ensure informed choice in entering the role, careful selection, professional and emotional preparation, ongoing role-specific training, regular supervision, and structured emotional processing. In addition, appropriate compensation, separate sexual assault on-call lines, recovery time after night shifts, stable multidisciplinary teams, and sustained managerial and institutional support are needed. Implementing these measures may contribute to staff retention, reduce burnout, and strengthen the quality and continuity of care provided to survivors.
Research number: 2023/151/R
Research end date: 03/2026