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This study compared new fire recruits in the first week of employment and following a 10-week training period with a group of experienced firefighters. Results suggest that new firefighter recruits enter the fire service with considerable experience of exposure to critical events. Nevertheless, a significant linear relationship was found between years of experience and levels of traumatic stress and depression. Further, this study revealed that experienced firefighters had lower levels of social support and lower self-efficacy than the new recruits. As these variables were associated with traumatic stress and depressive symptoms, it is concerning that these protective factors appear to diminish with time.

Increasingly, theorists and researchers in the area of trauma are pointing to the importance of individual differences in resilience and vulnerability as key determinants of the intensity and duration of trauma-related symptoms. Determining the relative influence of individual predictors is important for the further development of theoretical models for understanding trauma responses and for the subsequent development of intervention strategies that are sensitive to individual differences. This study explores the influence of individual factors and social support on traumatic reactions in firefighters exposed to tragic events in the line of duty. A total of 164 Australian firefighters completed questionnaires targeting locus of control, self-efficacy, patterns of interpersonal relating, social support and level of emotional distress. Results indicate that individuals with feelings of insecurity, lack of personal control, and alienation from others were more likely to experience higher levels of depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms subsequent to exposure to traumatic events on the job.

B y ac knowl edg ing the con tri bu tion of en vi ron mental stres sors to men tal health prob lems, the emer gence of the di ag nos tic cate gory post trau matic stress dis or der (PTSD) her alded an im por tant shift in psy chia try. Im plicit in the cri teria for di ag no sis was the as sump tion that PTSD could oc cur in any in di vid ual who en coun tered a cata strophic event, re gardless of any pre trau matic con sid era tions (1). This as sump tion has been sup ported by a body of re search lit era ture which con cluded that the de vel op ment of post trau matic dis tress is cor re lated with the dos age of trau matic ex po sure (2-4). Other authors, how ever, ar gue that the dose-effect model inade quately ex plains post trau matic dis tress. These crit ics point to meth odo logi cal limi ta tions of dose-effect stud ies, small amounts of vari ance ex plained by the se ver ity of the trau matic event, and low in ci dence rates of PTSD fol low ing shared events (5-7). While trauma se ver ity un doubt edly contrib utes to the dis tress ex pe ri enced by in di vidu als, it is becom ing in creas ingly clear that trauma and dis tress do not have a sim ple cause-ef fect re la tion. Rather, trau matic events may act as pre cipi tants, the re sponse to which is de ter mined by in di vid ual vul ner abili ties (6-8). These vul ner abili ties may in clude bio logi cal de ter mi nants (1,9), cu mu la tive life stressors (2,10), pre vi ous men tal health prob lems, and a fam ily his tory of men tal ill ness (11,12). In ad di tion to in di vid ual strengths and vul ner abili ties, ex ter nal fac tors such as so cial sup ports and the re cov ery en vi ron ment have been found to influ ence re sponses to trau matic events (13-15).An early as sump tion of ten made in the social-support lit erature was that in ter ac tions be tween in di vidu als in a so cial network are ba si cally posi tive and that the ex is tence of a sup port net work will re duce trau matic dis tress (16). How ever, social-support stud ies of per sons fac ing stress ful situa tions have of ten over looked the po ten tially trou ble some as pects of in ter per sonal re la tion ships and the un cer tain bene fits of social sup ports (17). Nega tive re la tion ships may ac tu ally explain more of the vari ance in ad just ment lev els than do posi tive re la tion ships (18). Fur ther, while a posi tive socialsupport net work may be as so ci ated with re duced dis tress, a cause-ef fect as so cia tion be tween these vari ables can not be in ferred.Un der ly ing per son al ity fac tors may ex plain find ings that asso ci ate higher lev els of ad just ment with higher lev els of social sup port; one pos si ble fac tor is an in di vidu al's re la tional ca pac ity, or abil ity to de velop and sus tain in ter per sonal re lation ships. From this per spec tive, at tach ment ex pe ri ences, espe cially in child hood, be come in cor po rated into per cep tions of self and other. These men tal tem plates for sig nifi cant re lation ship pat terns not only de t...