Exploring Resilience and Mindfulness as Preventative Factors for Psychological Distress Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Human Service Professional

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

1NURSING
Harker, R., Pidgeon, A., Klaassen, F., & King, S. (2016). Exploring resilience and mindfulness
as preventative factors for psychological distress burnout and secondary traumatic stress
among human service professional. Work, 54(3), 631-637. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=c cm&AN=117046339&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Introduction
Evidence based practice in nursing is the integration available research with patient’s
values and clinical expertise to achieve improved patient health outcomes. Such a practice is
crucial for informing person-centered delivery of treatment services. Professionals are to engage
in critical assessment of available research papers to understand their applicability to different
clinical scenarios. The present paper is a critical appraisal of a research paper by Harker et al.,
(2016) that aims to address the clinical question of “Do higher levels of resilience prevent
burnout in health science students?” The first section of the paper critiques the authorship,
research questions, research design, research methods and results of the study. The next part of
the paper identifies the barriers to the application of evidence to practice, generic and specific. A
conclusion is provided at the end of the paper.
Part A
Authorship
The research paper has been authored by four professionals from the QLD, Australia. The
first and the second authors of the paper belong to the Department of Psychology, Bond
University, QLD, while the third and the fourth authors are from Mercy Family Services of two
cities in QLD. It is to be noted that the qualifications of the authors have not been mentioned in

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the paper. According to Nieswiadomy and Bailey (2017) qualifications of the authors of a
research paper is essential to understand the credibility of the researchers. The expertise level of
the authors are thus under question. The authors did not have any conflict of interest to report.
Research questions
The objective of the research paper was connected to gaining an understanding of the
relationship between resilience, burnout, mindfulness, psychological distress and secondary
traumatic stress among human service professionals. The authors provided a suitable justification
on the need of the study. As per the authors, human service professionals face the concern
regarding the empowerment of vulnerable social populations. Interactions that are emotionally
demanding and stressors are the cause of adverse effects like burnout and secondary traumatic
stress. It is noteworthy that limited research has been undertaken to understand what might
enable individuals to thrive. Resilience has been thought to have a positive impact on human
service professionals (Harker et al., 2016).
Research design
The researchers considered a qualitative research design for the study with an exploratory
research approach. Since the aim of the paper was to understand the views and perspectives of
human participants in relation to the association between resilience, burnout, mindfulness and
distress, the research design was justified. Exploratory research design helps in providing a
detailed and rich picture of why individuals show particular behavior and have certain feelings.
Attitudes, feelings and viewpoints of human subjects can be best understood through qualitative
research (Moule et al., 2016).