March On Stress

TRiM has a positive effect on organisations – according to new research review paper

Added on the 20th April 2015

A new paper has been published in the Journal of Occupational Medicine – the first to review the various studies of the use of Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) which have been published in scientific journals.

The paper, published online on 16 April 2015 and entitled ‘Promoting organisational wellbeing: a comprehensive review of Trauma Risk Management’ examines previous TRiM research with the aim ‘to summarise current knowledge about TRiM and make recommendations for further research’.

The review reported a number of positive key findings about the use of TRiM, including:

• TRiM was found to do no harm (unlike some previously used models of trauma management such as critical incident debriefing)
• TRiM may have a positive effect upon organisational functioning
• TRiM appears acceptable to personnel within hierarchical organisations such as the military
• TRiM may reduce organisation sickness absence rates after traumatic events

The paper also concluded that TRiM provides managers within trauma exposed organisations with a simple post-exposure tool that may help to foster good mental health within their people, promote resilience and make use of clinicians only when necessary.

The senior author of the paper is March on Stress Clinical Director, Professor Neil Greenberg.

Professor Greenberg has led most of the research which has been carried out into TRiM and the results of the research have been published in various, independently peer reviewed, journals.

As well as his role at March on Stress he is a Professor of Defence Mental Health at King’s College, London. Previously he served in the Royal Navy for 23 years where he was part of the team to develop Trauma Risk Management. Neil is one of the UK’s leading experts on traumatic stress and is the current President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society.

Discussing the findings of the new paper he said: “This paper is a compilation of the available research into the use of TRiM and how organisations use it. It is encouraging that, taken together, the various papers which have examined the use of TRiM have shown it be of benefit to organisations outside of a military setting.

“As always, while TRiM is a useful tool, more research is required to understand how to comprehensively support the psychological health needs of staff working in trauma exposed organisations. Good guidance about this is freely available from the UKPTS website.”

An abstract of the article is available via the Journal of Occupational Medicine, where the paper can also be downloaded in full. Please click here to access the paper

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