The unseen cost of justice: post-traumatic stress symptoms in Canadian lawyers

Abstract

Limited research has been conducted on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5; 2013) exposure criterion: ‘work-related exposure to aversive details of traumatic events’. This study investigated the presence and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology among a national cross-sectional sample of practicing Canadian lawyers (N = 476). Participants were categorized into three groups: no, moderate, and high work-related exposure to potentially traumatic material. As hypothesized, lawyers in the moderate and high work-related trauma exposure groups obtained more elevated (severe) mean scores of PTSD symptoms, psychological distress, and reported a poorer quality of life (p