The psychological impact of motor vehicle accidents on emergency service workers

Abstract

Emergency service workers continuously face situations where they are in charge of the lives of others, and this can be a risk factor for their mental health. This study aims to determine the psychological impact of exposure to current death and physical injury events in the context of motor vehicle accidents among emergency personnel and which variables better predict posttraumatic stress disorder. Participants were National Institute of Medical Emergency workers (nurses and medical doctors; n= 59) in the north of Portugal. They filled out a trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder scale (PTSD), a scale that assesses distress (General Health Questionnaire 12), a peritraumatic dissociation scale (Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire) and a coping scale (Ways of Coping Questionnaire). Participants reported high exposure to events evaluated as traumatic, but low prevalence of PTSD. When the relation between exposure, time in emergency, sex, distress symptoms, peritraumatic dissociation, and PTSD symptoms was examined, peritraumatic dissociation and distress were the only predictors of PTSD symptoms, but beyond their contribution direct coping explains PTSD variance. In conclusion, taking into account the contribution of distress and peritraumatic dissociation to predict psychopathological symptoms, and the contribution of coping to lower PTSD scores, education and training should help the professionals deal with these reactions and improve coping, and organizations should support professionals in the most disturbing situations.

An integrative review of the impact of indirect trauma exposure in health professionals and potential issues of salience for midwives

“…). Findings from other studies indicated no association between experience in the profession and responses to traumatic events (Kerasiotis & Motta , Maia & Ribeiro ). If professional experience influences vulnerability for traumatic stress responses, it appears likely to be a product of many different factors, such as support, work stress and the nature of the work, rather than a direct association.…”

“…This review identified symptoms of traumatic stress in several healthcare professional groups at various degrees of severity. The percentage of professionals reporting clinically relevant symptoms of intrusion, avoidance and hyperarousal ranged between 3 (Maia & Ribeiro )–25% (Mealer et al . ).…”

The Development and Exploratory Psychometric Properties of the Traumatic and Routine Stressors Scale on Emergency Nurses (TRSS-EN)

“…To date, no standardized instruments have been created which allowed the joint estimation of the frequency and emotional impact of traumatic events and routine stressors in the emergency nursing profession. Only rare attempts have been made that did not consider the necessity of studying the stressful potential of both factors and their link with diverse forms of symptomatology, including post-traumatic stress [1,11,20]. However, a need to address this issue has become evident, since it seems unclear that traumatic events of great magnitude are inevitably more related to the development of post-traumatic symptomatology than other less significant, moderate routine stressors [2,17].…”

“…In spite of this, research on the differential association of both kinds of stressors to PTSD is still in its early stages. While some studies suggest a positive relationship between stressor severity and PTSD symptom severity [1,3,19], others do not and also highlight the potential risk resulting from the exposure to other more frequent and less significant routine stressors [11,20]. It could be expected that repeated exposure to especially intense or relevant stressors could lead to sensitization (psychological awareness) [21,22], accordingly increasing the harmful potential impact of such events.…”

Psychosocial Workload of Swedish Ambulance and Emergency Room Personnel with High Prevalence of Dying, Death and Grieving Relatives. A Descriptive and Comparison Study

“…In our study, there existed frequent demands on increased education and training, as this probably also would increase possibilities for career advancement. Organizations should support professionals especially when it comes to children and trauma (34,39,40).…”