The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Review

Trauma counseling centers for psychological support to manage trauma from workplace injuries in Korea: a narrative review

Chang Sook Kim1
1Trauma Counselling Center for Workers, Seongnam 13218, Korea.

© Copyright 2025 Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Dec 20, 2024; Revised: Jan 09, 2025; Accepted: Jan 13, 2025

Published Online: Jan 31, 2025

Abstract

This review describes a psychological support service designed to address post-traumatic stress disorder in workers impacted by workplace injuries, assisting in their recovery and facilitating their return to work. It explores the rationale and context behind establishing trauma counseling centers for these individuals, along with the status, roles, future directions, and recommendations for these centers. The review details the operational framework and functions of the workplace injury trauma management program, the scope of the impacts of such injury, the groups targeted for crisis intervention, and the psychological interventions tailored to each stage of recovery. Initiated as a pilot project in 2018, trauma counseling centers for workers have gradually become more common, with 23 centers in operation across Korea as of 2024.

Keywords: Crisis intervention; Counseling; Post-traumatic stress disorders; Psychosocial intervention; Workplace