Kehl, Doris, Knuth, Daniela, Hulse, Lynn ORCID: 0000-0001-5582-3520 and Schmidt, Silke (2014) Predictors of postevent distress and growth among firefighters after work-related emergencies — A cross-national study. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7 (3). pp. 203-211. ISSN 1942-9681 (Print), 1942-969X (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037954)

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Abstract

Firefighters may experience posttraumatic stress symptomatology (i.e. post-event distress) as a consequence of exposure to work-related distressing incidents. However, positive psychological changes (i.e. post-event growth) should also be taken into account. The aim of this cross-national study was to investigate both post-event distress and growth in firefighters following distressing incidents. A sample of 1916 firefighters from eight predominantly European countries recalled a work-related distressing incident. Two hierarchical regression analyses were run to reveal predictors of post-event distress and growth, respectively. Predictors included person pre-event characteristics, objective (e.g. type of incident, time since incident, fatalities) and subjective (e.g. perceived life-threat, peri-event distress, most distressing aspect) incident features, and the participant’s country. Post-event distress was measured by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and growth by the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form (PTGI-SF). The final models explained 29% of the variation in post-event distress and 26% in growth. Post-event distress and growth were predicted by different variables. Country differences were found after controlling for all other variables. Further research is needed to explain these differences.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Distress, Stress symptoms, Posttraumatic growth, Firefighter, Cross-national comparisons
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis (CNMPA) Faculty of Engineering & Science > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis (CNMPA) > Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) Faculty of Engineering & Science > School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences (CMS) Faculty of Engineering & Science
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2022 13:07
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/15010

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