Week 1

Vicarious Traumatization

Victims of violence often go without proper trauma-informed medical-legal care because of a shortage of forensic nurses (FNs), who are often overwhelmed by vicarious traumatization (VT) and consequently leave the profession. VT can affect any professional who works with victims of violence. Since forensic nurses collaborate closely with such victims, they are at high risk of suffering from VT (Tabor, 2011).

VT is defined as "…profound psychological effects, effects that can be disruptive and painful for the helper and can persist for months or years after work with a traumatized person" (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). Characteristics of VT include working with victims of violence, psychosocial symptoms, worldview changes, and negative work performance (Tabor, 2011). 

Because of the job's social and professional isolation, as well as the absence of oversight, preceptors, ongoing training, and peer support, the novice forensic nurse faces a very high risk of experiencing profound VT (Hite et al., 2022; Lombardo et al., 2024; Meyer, 2024; Newman et al., 2024). FNs experience a higher turnover rate than other nursing specialties due to the impacts of VT (Meyer, 2024; Lombardo et al., 2024). The two-year retention for FNs can be as low as 7.7%  (Meyer, 2024).

Currently, there is a lack of support and resources for FNs addressing their unique professional and personal challenges (Torregosa & Benavides, 2025). Formal mentorship programs have been shown to increase employee satisfaction, boost morale, and reduce employee turnover (Djiovanis, 2023).

How the program will work

The interventions for this project will be delivered over 12 weeks as learning modules, including online materials for the mentee to complete both individually and with the mentor. Most learning modules will include a Qualtrics survey at the end to track completion of the learning activities. Each learning module will start with a topic introduction for the week, an explanation of why it's relevant to forensic nursing, instructions for activities, and an end-of-week evaluation of activities using Qualtrics.

The progression of the mentorship will be monitored using learning modules, VTS, ProQOL-5, and surveys to collect both quantitative and qualitative data disseminated through a poster presentation at Duquesne University School of Nursing in the Summer of 2027.