The primary goal of the current study was to add to the literature regarding mental health implications of fire service membership. Paid-professional firefighters (n = 94) were compared with workers from non-emergency-service occupations (n = 91) with respect to posttraumatic symptomatology as well as other symptoms of mental illness. The results suggested that firefighters self-reported greater posttraumatic symptomatology than comparison participants as measured by the Impact of Events Scale—Revised. In addition, the firefighters reported more distress on several subscales of the Symptom Checklist 90—Revised. Specifically, firefighters scored higher than the non-emergency-service participants on self-reported interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, hostility, and psychoticism. Contrary to the original hypotheses, no links were evident between years of service and posttraumatic/mental health symptoms. Overall, this project suggests that firefighters are at substantially higher risk for traumatic stress symptoms as compared with other workers who do not work within the emergency services. In addition, it is suggested that previous reports of additional mental health symptoms experienced by firefighters may actually be more consistent with secondary reports of posttraumatic symptomatology. A secondary goal of this study was to provide exploratory data regarding potential links between firefighters’ mental health and self-reported personality characteristics. These data suggest that neuroticism may play a special role in the prediction of posttraumatic symptomatology for firefighters.

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Mitchell and Bray use the term rescue personality as a way of describing characteristics of individuals who serve in the emergency services and describe emergency service workers as inner-directed, action oriented, obsessed with high standards of performance, traditional, socially conservative, easily bored, and highly dedicated.This rescue personality has provided an important foundation for the controversial Critical Incident Stress Management model; however, little empirical evidence is available demonstrating its existence.Previous literature has primarily considered emergency service personality characteristics as predictors of posttraumatic symptoms and/or effective job performance. Consequently, a gap in the literature exists with respect to research investigating the existence of a particular personality type for emergency service workers, as compared with those working in nonemergency occupations. The present project compared a group of paid professional firefighters (n = 94) with a comparison group (n = 91) who worked in nonemergency occupations. The hypotheses were guided by Mitchell’s description of the rescue personality.That is, according to Mitchell’s description, firefighters were expected to self-report lower levels of the characteristic openness to experience, higher levels of the characteristic conscientiousness, higher self-reported Type A behavior, and higher self-reported tolerance for risk-taking behavior. None of these hypotheses were supported; however, firefighters reported the characteristic of extraversion at significantly higher rates than did comparison participants.

Male firefighters (n = 94) were compared with male workers (n = 91) from a variety of blue-collar, non—emergency service occupations. Responses on the World Assumptions Scale were examined in combination with the Impact of Events Scale—Revised and the Symptom Checklist-90. Initial hypotheses suggested that firefighters would report disrupted world assumptions and that these disrupted assumptions would be linked with greater mental health symptomatology. Results revealed that firefighters were not different from controls on world assumptions and that world assumptions were unrelated to years of service. These results suggest that the psychological reactions of workers exposed to high levels of job-related traumatic stress may not be consistent with that described in previous literature regarding primary victims. Consequently, it is suggested that more research is needed that specifically addresses psychological outcomes for firefighters and other high-trauma occupations. The findings also suggest that benevolence may be particularly important in relation to mental health in firefighters and that this belief may be useful in the prevention of posttraumatic symptomatology.

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