ABSTRACT
Emergency workers, including urban fire fighters and paramedics, must cope with a variety of duty-related stressors including traumatic incident exposures. Little is known about coping responses of emergency workers or whether their coping responses predict future mental health outcomes. The previously formulated Coping Responses of Rescue Workers Inventory (CRRWI) underwent a principal components analysis employing a sample (N = 220) of urban fire fighters and paramedics. Six empirically and theoretically distinct CRRWI components were identified which were relatively stable over a 6-month period. Scores on one of the CRRWI scales, but neither years of service nor their past half year's traumatic incident exposures, predicted future changes in self-reports of posttraumatic stress symptomatology.
Subject(s)
Adaptation, Psychological , Fires , Occupational Exposure/adverse effects , Rescue Work , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Urban Population , Adult , Allied Health Personnel , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Occupational Diseases/diagnosis , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosis , Time FactorsABSTRACT
Urban firefighters are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due in part to their exposure to duty-related trauma. This study compared duty-related trauma exposures and the prevalences of posttraumatic stress in U.S. and Canadian firefighters. Both samples reported relatively numerous and frequent posttrauma symptoms, and the rates of self-reported PTSD prevalence did not differ significantly. However, analysis of departmental records for respondents' previous year on duty revealed significant differences in both frequencies and categories of traumatic incident exposures. Some of the vulnerability and moderating risk factors associated with PTSD caseness differed between the U.S. and Canadian samples. Potential explanations for the observed differences in risk factors for PTSD in these 2 firefighter samples are considered.
Subject(s)
Allied Health Personnel/psychology , Occupational Diseases/epidemiology , Occupations/statistics & numerical data , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/epidemiology , Adult , Canada/epidemiology , Employee Performance Appraisal , Female , Fires , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Occupational Diseases/classification , Occupational Diseases/diagnosis , Odds Ratio , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Sampling Studies , Sex Distribution , Social Support , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/classification , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosis , United States/epidemiology , Urban Health/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
Little is known about the variables that might be associated with posttraumatic stress symptomatology in high-risk occupational groups such as professional firefighters and paramedics. A sample of 173 urban professional firefighter/EMT's and firefighter/paramedics rated and ranked the stressfulness of 33 actual and/or potential duty-related incident stressors. They also reported whether they had experienced each of these incident stressors within the past 6 months and, if they had, to recall on how many occasions within the past 6 months. A principal components analysis of their rescaled incident stressor ratings yielded five components: Catastrophic Injury to Self or Co-worker, Gruesome Victim Incidents, Render Aid to Seriously Injured, Vulnerable Victims, Minor Injury to Self and Death & Dying Exposure.
Subject(s)
Emergency Medical Technicians/psychology , Fires , Occupational Diseases/etiology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Stress, Psychological , Adult , Female , Humans , Incidence , Male , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/epidemiology , Urban PopulationABSTRACT
The relationship(s) between self-rated social support network conflict (both at work and off-work) and self-report measures of occupational stressors, job satisfaction, and health outcomes were examined in samples of currently employed professional firefighters (n = 1,730) and paramedics (n = 253). In both samples, perceived social support and network conflict at work were more strongly correlated with job satisfaction and work morale, as well as a measure of their appraised occupational stressors, than with their comparable home (off-work) satisfaction/conflict ratings. The path analysis generated suggested that, with only one exception, social support and relational conflict in the combined respondent sample could be conceptualized as direct sources of stress influencing the respondents' appraisal of their occupational stressors. The path model further suggested that firefighter/paramedics' appraisal of their occupational stressors mediated the network variables' influences on self-reported job dissatisfaction and stress symptom health outcome measures.
