Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health comorbidity in firefighters

Abstract

This study investigated the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health comorbidities among career firefighters in the U.S. and examined occupational factors related to PTSD. A total of 624 male career firefighters completed questions regarding PTSD and mental health conditions. Nearly 7% met the criteria for being in the range of concern for PTSD, and among those, 87% screened positive for at least one other mental health condition. Those with PTSD also reported significantly higher occupational stress and duty-related incident stress, having a lower perception of self-efficacy to manage stress/trauma exposure and lower perceptions of support from their department and peers than those without PTSD.

Keywords:

• Firefighters
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• mental health
• occupational factors

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the firefighters and their fire departments for participating in the study with the goal of improving firefighter health and operational readiness. We also would like to thank staff member at NDRI-USA (Hannah Kelley, B.A.) for her assistance with data collection, entry, and cleaning/verification.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Assistance to Firefighters Grants program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Department of Homeland Security [EMW-2014-FP00945]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or Department of Homeland Security.