Second victim phenomenon: impact on healthcare professionals, organizational responsibility and support strategies

Highlights The Second Victim phenomenon affects healthcare teams globally, yet it often remains invisible to executives and society. The occurrence of errors triggers psychological, cognitive, and/or physical reactions in the professionals involved; recovery depends on individual, organizational, and leadership factors. Healthcare institutions and leaders should adopt policies and practices that promote a safety culture, encouraging non-punitive error reporting with appropriate emotional and psychological support for Second Victims. Training and preparing healthcare teams to understand the Second Victim phenomenon, and offering support to these professionals are just as important as reporting errors. Unsafe practices and incidents that result in negative patient outcomes can lead to potential victims. While patients are the primary and most apparent victims, healthcare workers also suffer from their mistakes, in that they experience trauma following the event1 and are deemed the second victims2. The term "second victim" (SV) was first described by Wu (2000), who proposed that physicians who make mistakes also need help. Later, Scott expanded the concept, defining SVs as professionals involved in a health error3. More recently, an international consensus proposed that an SV can be any healthcare worker—whether directly or indirectly involved in an adverse event (AE), unintentional error, or patient-related injury—who is also negatively impacted by the experience of becoming a victim4. How to cite this article: Martins, Maristela Santini; De Rezende, Helena; Quadrado, Ellen Regina Sevilla; De Paula, Andresa Gomes; Carmo, Hércules de Oliveira; Nascimento, Vagner Ferreira do. Second victim phenomenon: impact on healthcare professionals, organizational responsibility and support strategies. Revista Cuidarte. 2025;16(2):e5072. https://doi.org/10.15649/cuidarte.5072