Latent Growth Mixture Modeling to Estimate Differential PTSD Trajectories and Associated Risk Factors in Psychiatric Staff Following Workplace Violence

Background: Workplace violence (WV) towards psychiatric staff has commonly been associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, prospective studies have shown that not all psychiatric staff who experience workplace violence experience post-traumatic stress. Purpose: We want to examine the longitudinal trajectories of PTSD in this population to identify possible subgroups that might be more at risk. Furthermore, we need to investigate whether certain risk factors of PTSD might identify membership in the subgroups. Method: In a sample of psychiatric staff from 18 psychiatric wards in Denmark who had reported an incident of WV, we used Latent Growth Mixture Modelling (LGMM) and further logistic regression analysis to investigate this. Results: We found three separate PTSD trajectories: a recovering, a delayed-onset, and a moderate-stable trajectory. Higher social support and negative cognitive appraisals about oneself, the world and self-blame predicted membership in the delayed-onset trajectory, while higher social support and lower accept coping predicted membership in the delayed-onset trajectory. Conclusion: Although most psychiatric staff go through a natural recovery, it is important to be aware of and identify staff members who might be struggling long-term. More focus on the factors that might predict these groups should be an important task for psychiatric departments to prevent posttraumatic symptomatology from work.