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Coping responses and posttraumatic stress symptomatology in urban fire service personnel
Author(s) -
Beaton Randal,
Murphy Shirley,
Johnson Clark,
Pike Ken,
Corneil Wayne
Publication year - 1999
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 - 10.1023/a:1024776509667
Subject(s) - coping (psychology) , stressor , psychology , occupational safety and health , clinical psychology , mental health , poison control , suicide prevention , injury prevention , posttraumatic stress , human factors and ergonomics , psychiatry , medicine , medical emergency , pathology
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.