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Voluntary and professional disaster‐workers: Similarities and differences in reactions
Author(s) -
Dyregrov Atle,
Kristoffersen Jakob Inge,
Gjestad Rolf
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.2490090310
Subject(s) - intrusion , turnover , psychology , clinical psychology , general health questionnaire , psychiatry , crash , scale (ratio) , mental health , medicine , management , geochemistry , computer science , economics , programming language , geology , physics , quantum mechanics
Forty‐three rescuers responding to a bus crash that killed 12 children and 4 adults and injured many more answered questionnaires at 1 and 13 months following the crash. This study compared the responses of the voluntary and professional helpers, using the Impact of Event Scale (IES) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). For all helpers taken together, the decline in IES‐intrusion and IBS‐total scores was significant from 1 to 13 months. The voluntary helpers reported significantly more intrusion and avoidance on the IES at 1 month than professional helpers, and for avoidance the voluntary helpers still evidenced a significantly higher score than professional helpers at 13 months. The GHQ scores at 13 months reflected that the long‐term negative impact of the event was low.