Self-resilience as a protective factor against development of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in police officers

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to check whether self-resilience, one of the characteristics known to affect the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms after experiencing traumatic events, could serve as a protective factor for police officers whose occupational factors are corrected. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study in which 112 male police officers in Gangwon Province participated. They visited the Wonju Severance Christian Hospital Occupational Environment Center for medical check-ups from June to December 2015. Their general characteristics were identified using structured questionnaires, and they were asked to fill in the Korean Occupational Stress Scale-Short Form (KOSS-SF). Further, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale-Korean (CD-RI-K), and Impact of Event Scale-Revised-Korean version (IES-R-K) were used to evaluate their job stress, depression, self-resilience, and PTSD symptoms. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to correct their personal, occupational, and psychological factors to analyze the relationship between self-resilience and PTSD symptoms. RESULTS: Among 112 respondents who experienced a traumatic event, those with low self-resilience had significantly higher rate of PTSD symptoms than those with high self-resilience even after correcting for the covariate of general, occupational, and psychological characteristics (odds ratio [OR] 3.51; 95 % CI: 1.06–19.23). CONCLUSIONS: Despite several limitations, these results suggest that a high degree of self-resilience may protect police officers from critical incident-related PTSD symptoms.

The Relationship between Alcohol Consumption and Exposure to Traumatic Events in Male Firefighters / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: This study explored the relationship between alcohol consumption and exposure to traumatic events in male firefighters. METHODS: Data was collected from a sample of 584 firefighters at urban fire stations. We surveyed the firefighters using self-administered questionnaires including sociodemographic and job-related characteristics such as the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Life Event Checklist (LEC), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Korean Occupational Stress Scale-Short Form (KOSS-SF), Impacted Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), Stait Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). RESULTS: There were significant differences in smoking, traumatic events (LEC), post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (IES-R), and anxiety (STAI-T) between the two drinking groups (p<0.05). In multivariate logistic regression, smoking (OR=2.084, 95% CI=1.172-3.705), LEC (OR=1.163, 95% CI=1.010-1.339) and IES-R (OR=1.024, 95% CI=1.002-1.046) were significant predictors for AUDIT (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: These results indicate that an appropriate intervention about the exposure to traumatic events should play a useful role in preventing firefighter alcohol problems.