Exposure to duty-related incident stressors in urban firefighters and paramedics.
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.
Beaton
R
R
Department of Psychosocial & Community Health, School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7263, USA.
Murphy
S
S
Johnson
C
C
Pike
K
K
Corneil
W
W
D000328:Adult; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005390:Fires; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D014505:Urban Population