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The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature with respect to traumatic stress in a firefighting context. The goal was to provide a clear and concise review intended for use by both researchers and practitioners. Firefighters are an under-researched group in the academic literature and updated review articles are necessary to advance this body of work.

Searches of the English language literature on firefighters and traumatic stress were completed and supplemented with a review of clinical information related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The search was comprehensive but was not guided by systematic review guidelines.

Research regarding firefighters and traumatic stress is limited and inconsistent in outcome. Much of the available literature supports a link between fire service work and increased post-traumatic symptomatology; however, some research has neglected to demonstrate a relationship for these factors. Some efforts such as the training of coping skills and team building may improve firefighters’ resilience to PTSD, while therapeutic and psychopharmacological treatments may be effective in reducing PTSD progression.

To the authors’ knowledge, no previous paper is available that has specifically intended to address firefighters and traumatic stress in a review format for researchers and practitioners. In the authors’ experience, fire service members are eager for literature addressing their profession and presented in a manner accessible for both non-academic and academic audiences.

While a return to work following trauma exposure can be therapeutic, this is not always so. As with many topics related to traumatic stress in organizations, several contingency factors complicate the effort to draw an overarching conclusion about whether returning to work is therapeutic. The purpose of this paper is to present important determinants of whether work is therapeutic or triggering for those with traumatic stress conditions. The need for contingency approaches in the study of traumatic stress in organizations is illustrated.

Literature on traumatic stress in organizations is reviewed.

Three of the key determinants of whether a return to work is therapeutic or triggering for traumatic stress sufferers are trauma-type contingencies, condition-type contingencies and work-setting contingencies. For instance, human-caused and task-related traumas are more likely than natural disasters to make a return-to-work triggering. Additionally, the time since developing a traumatic stress condition is inversely related to the degree of improvement in that condition through the experience of working. Moreover, managerial actions can affect how therapeutic an employee’s return to work is.

These findings suggest the challenges of reintegrating a traumatized employee to the workplace can be highly situation-specific. Careful consideration of the traumatic event suffered by each traumatic stress victim, their traumatic stress condition, and the work setting to which they would return are recommended.

Promoting mental health in organizations can contribute to employers’ social performance.

Examination of the factors that complicate predicting whether work is therapeutic posttrauma demonstrates how contingency approaches can advance research on trauma in organizations.

There has been wide debate around early interventions following traumatic exposures. Many of the studies examining the effectiveness of debriefing have not been undertaken in a workplace setting for which they were designed. The study was undertaken with prison staff and evaluated the debriefing provided as part of a trauma support programme provided by the prison service. This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness and a programme of support for prison service staff following a traumatic incident within a prison environment.

Prison staff exposed to a range of traumatic events were offered debriefing. Measurements were taken soon after the incident and again one month later. The scores of those receiving debriefing were compared with those who did not receive debriefing.

The results showed that the prison staff receiving debriefing showed a significant reduction in their traumatic stress, anxiety and depression scores. There was no significant difference in the symptoms of the non-debriefed group.

The findings suggest that group-based well structured debrief sessions can be useful in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress following exposure to critical incidents in the workplace. The findings were accepted with the limitation that the groups were self-selecting, a randomised control trial was not allowed for the purpose of this study due to ethical concerns.

The results suggest that there are benefits in undertaking group debriefing within an organisational setting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of psychopathy facets on the relationship between traumatic exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology.

Participants were male prisoners incarcerated in the UK.

The analysis revealed differential associations between the two facets of psychopathy, with potentially traumatic events and symptoms of PTSD. Specifically, neither primary psychopathy nor trauma exposure were significantly related to PTSD, while secondary psychopathy was positively and significantly related with PTSD symptoms. Furthermore, the effect of trauma exposure on PTSD was found to depend on the level of secondary psychopathy. More specifically, trauma exposure was strongly and positively associated with PTSD symptoms for low levels of secondary psychopathy and negatively associated with PTSD symptomology for individuals with high levels of secondary psychopathy.

The findings clarify linkages among psychopathy facets, trauma, and PTSD, and extend the understanding of the presentation of PTSD in male prisoners.

Women comprise a significant and growing proportion of the law enforcement population. Despite this, their potentially unique reactions to job-related posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depression have been underrepresented in the relevant literature, particularly within the context of exposure to community violence. Also understudied is the role of empathy in the development of post-trauma reactions, which has been a risk factor for the development of posttraumatic distress in previous studies. With the recent endorsement of empathy training by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, it is important to examine ways in which empathy may contribute to differences in PTSS and depression for male and female officers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Male and female police officers (n=189) exposed to violence during the 2014 Ferguson protests completed a battery of measures designed to assess demographic information, prior trauma history, and mental health outcomes.

Moderation analyses showed that empathy moderated the relationships between exposure and PTSS and exposure and depression in female officers, such that exposure was associated with higher posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms only for female officers with high levels of empathy. These relationships were not found for men.

This study is the first to examine sex differences and the role of empathy in the mental health effects of law enforcement secondary to violence during community protests against policing.

Children experience trauma more often than many early childhood educators realize. As many as 26% of children experience multiple trauma events such as abuse, neglect, parental substance abuse, parental incarceration, and so forth. Trauma impacts brain development in many negative ways that may have serious consequences on the child’s ability to learn, grow socially and emotionally, and develop physically. These brain changes also change how the child will play in the early childhood classroom, and information is given to help recognize the signs of trauma in children. The early childhood educator can make trauma-sensitive modifications in the classroom to assist the traumatized child’s ability to play out the problem. School counselors can be a resource for assisting early childhood teachers when working with traumatized children. A brief description of the importance of play therapy as a developmentally appropriate method to help traumatized young children is provided.

The purpose of this study is to explore mental health difficulties, including risk and protective factors, which may impact on symptom severity after exposure to crisis situations (war, terrorism and/or natural disasters), among first responders from uniformed services.

Peer-reviewed journal articles published in English between January 2012 and March 2022 were searched in ProQuest, Wiley, Google Scholar and PubMed databases. In total, 12 articles were obtained from an original screening of 94,058 articles. Full article texts were screened for content and quality by two reviewers, with high agreeability.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression were the most common diagnoses. Risk factors identified were pre-deployment factors of overweight, low cognitive ability and social support, existing emotional difficulties, negative childhood experiences and stressful life events; during crisis situations factors of higher frequency and subjective severity of combat, increased rates of combat stress reaction, high levels of concerns for life and family, more stressful mission position, threat of death/severe injury and high rate of killing the enemy; and post-deployment factors, such as low social support and physical health, lack of coping mechanisms and use of avoidance strategies and social stigma. Protective factors increasing resilience and lessening symptom severity were reported as pre-deployment cognitive ability, high social support, stable physical health, effective coping, post-traumatic growth and high levels of perceived adequacy in pre-deployment preparation and training. In addition to main findings, data about author(s), publication type, population, age, type of crisis and evaluation measures were extracted. Key findings and related theories, gaps in literature and recommendations are discussed.

As yet, however, research into the factors that could serve as risk and/or protective factors are not clearly indicated in terms of post-crisis recovery. As per the authors’ knowledge, this study is an initial approach to considering this area.

Previous literature suggests that exposure to trauma has both positive and negative impacts on leadership and leadership development, although there is a lack of empirical research. This exploratory study compared military leaders’ use of transformational leadership styles (TLS) before and after trauma exposure from the followers’ perspective. This study used a retrospective pretest design to survey veteran and active duty military personnel. Significant differences were found between pre- and post-trauma exposure TLS ratings, with a mean decline in the TLS after trauma exposure. The analysis of the open-ended questions indicated a reduction in the use of the TLS after trauma, but identified positive changes in some cases. There was no evidence that changes in the TLS were concentrated in any of the five styles.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review on the topic of police stressors and associated health outcomes. Recent empirical research is reviewed in the areas of workplace stress, shift work, traumatic stress, and health. The authors provide a comprehensive table outlining occupational exposures and related health effects in police officers.

A review of recent empirical research on police stress and untoward psychological and physiological health outcomes in police officers.

The results offer a conceptual idea of the empirical associations between stressful workplace exposures and their impact on the mental and physical well-being of officers.

A key limitation observed in prior research is the cross-sectional study design; however, this serves as a motivator for researchers to explore these associations utilizing a longitudinal study design that will help determine causality.

This review provides empirical evidence of both mental and physical outcomes associated with police stress and the processes involved in both. Research findings presented in this paper are based on sound psychological and medical evidence among police officers

The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of work to self-reported mental health symptoms in fire service members.

In 2004, the first wave of this data collection was completed with all members of a fire department in a small northern center in British Columbia. The members completed a series of questionnaires measuring mental health, personality and satisfaction. Since 2004, all recruit members entering the department have also completed the same set of questionnaires shortly after hiring. Subsequently, in 2016–2017, the full sample, including recruit members, were invited to complete the Wave 2 data collection cycle, which included a set of questionnaires very similar to that collected in Wave 1.

The recruit sample reported significantly fewer mental health symptoms, as compared to career firefighters, at Time 1 (prior to workplace exposure). However, at Time 2 (after workplace exposure), no difference between the groups was evident.

It is possible that recruit firefighters reported more positive mental health because of social desirability bias upon beginning a new job.

These results suggest that service as a firefighter could potentially have an impact on mental health and efforts should be made to mitigate this impact.

To the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first study that has followed recruit firefighters longitudinally in an effort to prospectively evaluate the impact of workplace exposure on mental health.