In South Africa the incidence of violent crime is an everyday occurrence that affects the majority of the population directly and/or indirectly. Research reveals that counselling victims of violent crime may cause psychological symptoms in trauma workers, which in turn may lead to Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). However, despite this knowledge, there appear to be very few trauma studies that focus on trauma workers. Furthermore there also appears to be a lack of studies that focus on the roles that key variables play in the transmission of STS. Therefore through the analysis of 64 self-report questionnaires, we aim to explore the psychological impact on trauma workers who work with ‘victims’ of violent crimes, specifically focusing on the level of exposure to traumatic material; level of empathy; level of perceived social support and their relation to STS. In order to test these hypotheses, analysis comprised simple statistics, correlations, a t test and a moderate multiple regression. Results indicate that the trauma workers, to some extent, experience symptoms of STS. In addition, it was found that previous exposure to traumatic material (in the personal lives of counsellors), level of empathy, and level of perceived social support have a significant relationship with STS. Social support was not found to have a moderating effect, but empathy emerged as a consistent moderator between the trauma workers' previous exposure to traumatic material and STS.
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