workplace disruption following psychological trauma: influence of incident severity level on organizations' post-incident response planning and execution

background: psychologically traumatic workplace events (known as critical incidents), which occur globally, are increasing in prevalence within the usa. assisting employers in their response is a growing practice area for occupational medicine, occupational social work, industrial psychology and other occupational health professions. traumatic workplace events vary greatly in their level of organizational disruption. objective: to explore whether extent of workplace disruption influences organizations' decisions for post-incident response planning and plan execution. methods: administrative data mining was employed to examine practice data from a workplace trauma response unit in the usa. bivariate analyses were conducted to test whether scores from an instrument measuring extent of workplace disruption associated with organizational decisions regarding post-incident response. results: the more severe and disruptive the incident, the more likely organizations planned for and followed through to deliver on-site interventions. following more severe incidents, organizations were also more likely to deliver group sessions and to complete follow-up consultations to ensure ongoing worker recovery. conclusion: increasing occupational health practitioners' knowledge of varying levels of organizational disruption and familiarity with a range of organizational response strategies improves incident assessment, consultation and planning, and ensures interventions delivered are consistent with the level of assistance needed on both worker and organizational levels.