Study: Paramedics More Likely to Suffer Post-Traumatic Stress

DARTMOUTH, N.S. (CP) - Paramedics are at an increased risk of suffering from post-traumatic stress, but not enough is known about how best to help them cope, an emergency medical services conference heard Friday.

The first phase of a three-year study into the stress of first-responders was presented at the Emergency Medical Services Chiefs of Canada conference in Dartmouth, N.S., on Friday.

The study is looking at prevention and management of post-traumatic stress disorder.

While post-traumatic stress affects seven to eight per cent of the general population, it's up to three times more likely among paramedics, lead researcher Vince Savoia said.

The Tema Conter Memorial Trust called for and funded the study, now entering its second year.

Little information has been available on the best course of treatment for acute and long-term emergency personnel stress, said Savoia, who is also the trust's founder and executive director.

And suggestions for coping are often questioned.

For example, Savoia said there is little agreement over whether it's better to immediately debrief a responding medic or if doing so would simply serve to repeat the trauma.

Savoia, a former paramedic, said one bad call can stay with you for life.

''It's a reality of the industry and of the profession,'' Graham McAllister of Nova Scotia's Emergency Health Services said of on-the-job stress.

''I think all responders, when they respond to these tragic types of incidents, suffer from post-traumatic stress every day. It's a matter how you manage that stress and how you cope.''

McAllister, a 20-year paramedic, manages the service's critical incident stress management program.

The peer-support program helps responders deal with the trauma of being involved with other people's traumas all day, he said.

''A lot of times people will assume because you're a paramedic in emergency services, 'Well, you deal with that; that's just what you do; so it shouldn't affect you,' but the reality is that we're all just human beings just like anyone else,'' McAllister said.

''It's a normal reaction by normal people to an abnormal situation.''

The first phase of the study used Toronto paramedics for its sample, but Savoia said the work would be applicable for any part of the country.

Research co-ordinator Paulette Brazeau hopes to expand the sample with a web-based questionnaire and produce results for a general standard of intervention across Canada by the end of 2007.

For now, she said, emergency medical personnel need to be aware of how common stress is and how important it is to deal with it immediately.

(Halifax Chronicle-Herald)

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.