Resilience over Adversity: Predictors of Secondary Traumatic Stress in Graduate Social Work Students

The current study used a cross-sectional electronic survey to explore the prevalence of and relationships between adverse childhood experiences, adverse community environments (such as childhood discrimination), childhood resilience experiences, and current secondary traumatic stress (STS) in a nationally distributed sample of graduate social work students (N = 343). Bivariate analysis indicated that sexual and gender minority (SGM) participants experienced significantly more childhood identity-based discrimination and fewer childhood resilience experiences, compared with non-SGM participants. Participants of color faced more childhood identity-based discrimination, but no difference in resilience experiences compared with White participants. Hierarchical multiple regressions demonstrated that Resilience Questionnaire scores (odds ratio [OR] = 0.89, p = .008), childhood counseling (OR = 0.43, p = .016), and current counseling (OR = 1.94, p = .011) were significant predictors of Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale scores, explaining 17.6 percent of the variance, χ2(8, N = 313) = 44.283, p < .001. Childhood adversity did not predict STS when resilience was added to the model. This study highlights that childhood resilience experiences are a stronger predictor of STS than childhood adversity. The high prevalence of STS found underscores the need for intervention research to support social work students.