Characteristics of emergency services personnel related to peritraumatic dissociation during critical incident exposure.

Material type: Text

TextDescription: 9 pDDC classification:

362.18 21

Subject: The aim of this study was to identify characteristics of emergency services personnel related to acute dissociative responses at the time of critical incident exposure, a phenomenon designated "peritraumatic dissociation". The authors studied 157 rescue workers who responded to the Nimitz Freeway collapse during the 1989 loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as 201 rescue workers who were not involved in that disaster. Demographics, level of critical incident exposure, perceived threat at the time of exposure, personality attributes, coping strategies, and locus of control were related to subjects' scores on the questionnaire. According to the univariate tests, the subjects with clinically meaningful levels of peritraumatic dissociation were younger; reported greater exposure to critical incident stress; felt greater perceived threat; had lower scores on the adjustment, identity, ambition, and prudence scales of the Hogan Personality Inventory; had higher scores on measures of coping by means of escape-avoidance, self-control, and active problem solving; and had greater externality in locus of control. Linear modeling with multiple logistic regression analyses indicated that greater feelings of perceived threat, coping by means of escape-avoidance, and coping by means of self-control were associated with a greater likelihood of being in the peritraumatic dissociation group, above and beyond age and exposure to stress. Rescue workers who are shy, inhibited, uncertain about their identity, or reluctant to take leadership roles, who have global cognitive styles, who believe their fate is determined by factors beyond their control, and who cope with critical incident trauma by emotional suppression and wishful thinking are at higher risk for acute dissociative responses to trauma and subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Books	Australian Emergency Management Library	BOOK	F362.18 CHA (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		900074923

Includes bibliographical references

Reprinted from American journal of psychiatry; 1996; v. 153, no. 7; p. 94-102

The aim of this study was to identify characteristics of emergency services personnel related to acute dissociative responses at the time of critical incident exposure, a phenomenon designated "peritraumatic dissociation". The authors studied 157 rescue workers who responded to the Nimitz Freeway collapse during the 1989 loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as 201 rescue workers who were not involved in that disaster. Demographics, level of critical incident exposure, perceived threat at the time of exposure, personality attributes, coping strategies, and locus of control were related to subjects' scores on the questionnaire. According to the univariate tests, the subjects with clinically meaningful levels of peritraumatic dissociation were younger; reported greater exposure to critical incident stress; felt greater perceived threat; had lower scores on the adjustment, identity, ambition, and prudence scales of the Hogan Personality Inventory; had higher scores on measures of coping by means of escape-avoidance, self-control, and active problem solving; and had greater externality in locus of control. Linear modeling with multiple logistic regression analyses indicated that greater feelings of perceived threat, coping by means of escape-avoidance, and coping by means of self-control were associated with a greater likelihood of being in the peritraumatic dissociation group, above and beyond age and exposure to stress. Rescue workers who are shy, inhibited, uncertain about their identity, or reluctant to take leadership roles, who have global cognitive styles, who believe their fate is determined by factors beyond their control, and who cope with critical incident trauma by emotional suppression and wishful thinking are at higher risk for acute dissociative responses to trauma and subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.