Background: Patient care in the prehospital emergency setting is error-prone. Wu's publications on the second victim syndrome made very clear that medical errors may lead to severe emotional injury on the caregiver's part. So far, little is known about the extent of the problem within the field of prehospital emergency care. Our study aimed at identifying the prevalence of the Second Victim Phenomenon among Emergency Medical Services (EMS) physicians in Germany.
Methods: Web-based distribution of the SeViD questionnaire among n = 12.000 members of the German Prehospital Emergency Physician Association (BAND) to assess general experience, symptoms and support strategies associated with the Second Victim Phenomenon.
Results: In total, 401 participants fully completed the survey, 69.1% were male and the majority (91.2%) were board-certified in prehospital emergency medicine. The median length of experience in this field of medicine was 11 years. Out of 401 participants, 213 (53.1%) had experienced at least one second victim incident. Self-perceived time to full recovery was up to one month according to 57.7% (123) and more than one month to 31.0% (66) of the participants. A total of 11.3% (24) had not fully recovered by the time of the survey. Overall, 12-month prevalence was 13.7% (55/401). The COVID-19 pandemic had little effect on SVP prevalence within this specific sample.
Conclusions: Our data indicate that the Second Victim Phenomenon is very frequent among prehospital emergency physicians in Germany. However, four out of ten caregivers affected did not seek or receive any assistance in coping with this stressful situation. One out of nine respondents had not yet fully recovered by the time of the survey. Effective support networks, e.g., easy access to psychological and legal counseling as well as the opportunity to discuss ethical issues, are urgently required in order to prevent employees from further harm, to keep healthcare professionals from leaving this field of medical care and to maintain a high level of system safety and well-being of subsequent patients.
Keywords: coping; emergency medical services; medical error; patient safety; second victim; support strategies.