A critical incident is a situation that is traumatic for the front line workers involved. The incident causes the worker to experience unusually strong emotional reaction any time during or after the incident.

Examples of critical incidents include:

serious injury or death of a close relative, friend or co-worker in the line of duty;

loss of a client/patient after prolonged professional relationships

incidents that attract considerable media attention;

personal identification with a victim or his/her circumstances;

suicide of a a close relative, friend or co-worker

serious injury or death of a person,

death of, or violence towards, a child

identifying the deceased.

A Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) is an intervention using agroup or individual format to provide professional help within hours of a major incident. It was first designed to minimize stress related injury to emergency personnel (fire, police, emergency medical services, disaster, and hospital emergency department). Now reaching to individuals across the globe.

What is a critical incident?

People involved with, or exposed to, modern-day traumas can experience a range of emotional responses. Concern for victims of workplace and disaster-related trauma has led to increased popularity of early intervention and prevention strategies.

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