The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 1 - 18

R . Jason Lynch

Some of the most recognizable
traumas that U .S . collegians
experience include severe mental
health episodes, sexual assault, or
hate-based incidents.

students: feeling anger, sadness, and anxiety;
handling distressing thoughts about traumatized students; finding some meaning in what
happened to traumatized students; and coping
with thoughts of not being able to support students who experienced trauma anymore. This
scale was modified for a residential student
staff context from the scale measuring self-efficacy in social workers used by Cieslak, Luszczynska, Taylor, Rogala, and Benight (2013).

Dependent Variables
traumatic event; suicidal ideation, attempt,
or completion; severe mental health episode
such as schizophrenic episodes and anxiety/
panic attacks; death of a loved one; natural
or man-made disasters such as tornados and
fires; mental or physical injury from military
combat; eating disorder; economic hardship
such as homelessness and hunger; substance
abuse; and family issues such as abuse and
divorce (Silverman & Glick, 2010).

Frequency of support. Participants reported the frequency of their support of students
who have experienced traumas by responding
to the question, "On average, how often do
you support students who have experienced
trauma?" Participants selected never, about once
a year, a few times a year, about once a month,
a few days a month, a few days a week, or about
every day.

Secondary trauma self-efficacy (STSE). The
7-item STSE scale used a Likert-type 6-point
scale (1 = untrue; 2 = somewhat untrue; 3 = slightly untrue; 4 = slightly true; 5 = somewhat true; and
6 = true) to measure the extent to which the
respondent felt capable of managing various
emotions while working with traumatized

18

Participants made their selections based on a
6-point Likert scale (1 = untrue; 2 = somewhat
untrue; 3 = slightly untrue; 4 = slightly true; 5 =
somewhat true; and 6 = true) for each of the four
dimensions of secondary traumatic stress with
items adapted from existing measures of symptoms of secondary trauma (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Bride et al., 2004).

Changes in arousal and reactivity (AR).
The AR items measured the extent to which
supporting students experiencing trauma had
left resident assistants with feelings of hypervigilance, jumpiness, or irritability.

Negative alteration of mood or cognition (NAM). The NAM items measured
the extent to which supporting students
experiencing various traumas had left
RAs feeling drained, discouraged about
the future, emotionally numb, or less interested in being around other people.
Avoidance (AVD). The AVD items measured the extent to which supporting students experiencing various traumas had left
RAs avoiding people, places, or things that
reminded them of their work with students;
avoiding working with some students, if pos-

T h e J o u r n a l o f C o l l e g e a n d U n i v e r s i t y St u d e n t H o u s i n g
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 1
