ArticleAdvances in medical education and practice2019
Second victims in health care: current perspectives.
Article in Advances in medical education and practice, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers.
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Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 156 citations in OpenAlex.
- Feeling of Guilt, Stress, and Self-Compassion Among Nursing Staff in the Workplace.Research in nursing & health · 2026Article
- Emotional Impact of Patient Death and Associated Psychological Distress in Cardiac Physicians.JACC. Advances · 2026Article
- Presence and detectability of the second victim phenomenon in German-speaking medical professionals involved in dysphagia and respiratory therapy: cross-sectional survey research (SeViD-V).BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Bridging the gap: disparities in perceptions of the "second victim" phenomenon between Israeli policymakers and frontline nurses.Human resources for health · 2026Article
- The Symptoms and Impacts Experienced by Healthcare Professionals as Second Victims After a Safety Incident: A Scoping Review.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Article
- Defensive medicine in dermatological practice - Dermatopathology as a mirror of structural challenges.Journal der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft = Journal of the German Society of Dermatology : JDDG · 2026Review
- Mapping the Second Victim Experience Among Western Nurses: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The Relationship Between Barriers to Medical Error Disclosure and Patient Safety Culture: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of nursing management · 2026Article
- Stress Experiences and Support Needs of Nurses in Patient Safety Incidents: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2026Article
- Repercussions of the second victim phenomenon on health care workers: Scoping review.PloS one · 2026Article
- Navigating Recovery After Medical Adverse Events: The Role of Social Support and Cognitive Reappraisal in Second Victims' Post-Traumatic Growth.Journal of nursing management · 2026Article
- Clinical Nurses as Second Victims After Patient Safety Incidents: A Meta-Synthesis of Experiences, Coping and Support Needs.Journal of nursing management · 2026Review
- Burnout and patient safety: navigating between exaggerated evidence and warranted assertability.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Occurrence and associated factors of self-reported medical errors among Chinese physicians and nurses: a cross-sectional survey.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Perspectives of healthcare professionals regarding support following adverse events in three public hospitals in Gauteng: two sides of the coin.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Second victim syndrome and turnover intention among critical care nurses.Discover mental health · 2025Article
- Assessment of First Aid Knowledge at Different Stages of Education.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The current situation and associated factors of the psychological capital of nurses' second victims in China: a cross-sectional study.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- How Surgeons and Surgical Leaders Manage Complications, Medical Errors, Malpractice, and Second Victim Syndrome.Journal of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America · 2025Article
- Exploring the impact of interaction dynamics and professional capacity and development on cognitive medical errors: a multiple-case study of healthcare professionals in Jordan.BMC medical education · 2025Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Medical errors are a serious public health problem and the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Every day, the health care professionals (HCPs) practice their skill and knowledge within excessively complex situations and meet unexpected patient outcomes. These unexpected complications and unintentional errors will always be a part of the medical system due to the universal nature of human fallibility and technology. While not all errors are life-threatening, they can significantly compromise a patient's quality of life. However, the victims of medical error reach far beyond the patient. The second victim (SV), which defined for the first time by Albert Wu in his description of the impact of errors on HCPs by both personally and professionally, is a medical emergency equivalent to post-traumatic stress disorder. When the errors occur, it causes a domino effect including the four groups: the patient and family (first victim), the HCP [SV], the hospital reputation (third victim), and patients who are harmed subsequently (fourth victims). The rights of our patients to safe, reliable, and patient-centered care are critical and most important as a primary and utmost aim of medicine. However, we also have to take care of our own (SVs), especially when we have good people who mean to do well and then find themselves in an emotionally complex situation. There is a need to articulate to the public, politicians, and media how system failure leads to medical error even in hand of well-educated and competent HCPs are given an increasing clinical workload. Furthermore, despite several leading institutions in western countries have developed formal support programs that allow HCPs to cope with their emotional distress by obtaining timely support in an emphatic, confidential, non-judgmental environment, we need to raise awareness of this phenomenon and appropriate institutional responses both to harmed patients and their families and HCPs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.