THE INFLUENCE OF SHARING EMPATHY ON SECONDARY TRAUMATIC STRESS IN COMMUNITY SOCIAL SERVICE WORKERS IN MALANG

The phenomenon of increasing the intensity of emotional interaction sharing empathy in daily social experiences can cause both positive and negative impacts. One of the risks that can arise is secondary traumatic stress (STS), which is the stress felt by individuals due to exposure to
other people's traumatic experiences. This research aims to find out the influence of sharing empathy on STS on certain individuals who are obliged to face other people's traumatic stories in their work. The approach used is a mixed method by combining quantitative method which using IRI scale (Interpersonal Reactivity Index Scale) & STS scale (Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale) and qualitative design with open-ended question. There were 143 respondents in the study who used the convenience sampling technique and analyzed using simple linear
regression with bootstrap procedures and thematic coding. The results of simple linear regression analysis showed that sharing empathy had a positive and significant effect on STS with a regression coefficient value (B) of 0.524, a value of p<0.001, and a coefficient of determination R² of 0.159, which shows that sharing empathy explains 15.9% of STS variance. In thematic coding, the results of the analysis produce 2 themes, namely empathy response and the impact in STS. Qualitative findings show that empathic responses can cause emotional and
physical consequences that are relevant to STS. Overall, this study gives the view that sharing empathy is one of the factors that contribute to STS and the discovery is not only based on numerical results.