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The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress

We investigated factors associated with increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in ambulance personnel and the barriers faced in accessing support for work-related stress (WRS). A cross-sectional study of 388 ambulance personnel used self-administered questionnaires to assess for PT...

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Autores principales: Ntatamala, Itumeleng, Adams, Shahieda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206234
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042046
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author Ntatamala, Itumeleng
Adams, Shahieda
author_facet Ntatamala, Itumeleng
Adams, Shahieda
author_sort Ntatamala, Itumeleng
collection PubMed
description We investigated factors associated with increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in ambulance personnel and the barriers faced in accessing support for work-related stress (WRS). A cross-sectional study of 388 ambulance personnel used self-administered questionnaires to assess for PTSD and level of occupational stressors: Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Critical Incident Inventory, EMS Chronic Stress Questionnaire, SF-36 Quality of Life and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. The prevalence of PTSD in the study population was 30%. The participants were predominantly female (55%), with a median age of 38 (IQR; 31–44) years. PTSD was associated with smoking (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.05–2.95), illicit drug use (OR = 16.4, 95% CI: 1.87–143.86) and problem drinking (OR = 3.86, 95% CI: 1.80–8.23). A self-reported mental health condition (OR = 3.76, 95% CI: 1.96–7.21), being treated for a medical condition (OR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.22–3.11), exposure to critical incident stress (OR = 4.27, 95% CI: 2.24–8.15) and chronic WRS (OR = 4.46, 95% CI: 1.93–10.31) were associated with PTSD risk. Barriers to seeking help included concerns that services were not confidential and the negative impact on the participant’s career. The increased levels of WRS, strong associations with substance use and barriers to accessing care offer starting points for workplace interventions to reduce the impact of PTSD in ambulance personnel.
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spelling pubmed-88716472022-02-25 The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress Ntatamala, Itumeleng Adams, Shahieda Int J Environ Res Public Health Article We investigated factors associated with increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in ambulance personnel and the barriers faced in accessing support for work-related stress (WRS). A cross-sectional study of 388 ambulance personnel used self-administered questionnaires to assess for PTSD and level of occupational stressors: Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Critical Incident Inventory, EMS Chronic Stress Questionnaire, SF-36 Quality of Life and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. The prevalence of PTSD in the study population was 30%. The participants were predominantly female (55%), with a median age of 38 (IQR; 31–44) years. PTSD was associated with smoking (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.05–2.95), illicit drug use (OR = 16.4, 95% CI: 1.87–143.86) and problem drinking (OR = 3.86, 95% CI: 1.80–8.23). A self-reported mental health condition (OR = 3.76, 95% CI: 1.96–7.21), being treated for a medical condition (OR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.22–3.11), exposure to critical incident stress (OR = 4.27, 95% CI: 2.24–8.15) and chronic WRS (OR = 4.46, 95% CI: 1.93–10.31) were associated with PTSD risk. Barriers to seeking help included concerns that services were not confidential and the negative impact on the participant’s career. The increased levels of WRS, strong associations with substance use and barriers to accessing care offer starting points for workplace interventions to reduce the impact of PTSD in ambulance personnel. MDPI 2022-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8871647/ /pubmed/35206234 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042046 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ntatamala, Itumeleng
Adams, Shahieda
The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title_full The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title_fullStr The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title_full_unstemmed The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title_short The Correlates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ambulance Personnel and Barriers Faced in Accessing Care for Work-Related Stress
title_sort correlates of post-traumatic stress disorder in ambulance personnel and barriers faced in accessing care for work-related stress
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206234
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042046
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