Health-related quality of life of firefighters and police officers 8.5 years after the air disaster in Amsterdam

Slottje, Pau line; Twisk, Jos W. R.; Smidt, Nynke; Huizink, Anja C.; Witteveen, Anke B.; Mechelen, Willem van; Smid, Tjabe

doi:10.1007/s11136-006-9006-2

Cited by 29 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…A further report on the same cohort found that exposed workers reported a significantly lower physical healthrelated quality-of-life (HRQoL) and vitality than nonexposed workers [22]. Exposed police officers also reported a lower mental HRQoL.…”

Section: Impact On Respondersmentioning

confidence: 90%

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

Laugharne

Watt

Janča

2011

Current Opinion in Psychiatry

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Section: Impact On Respondersmentioning

confidence: 90%

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

Laugharne

Watt

Janča

2011

Current Opinion in Psychiatry

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“…Furthermore, it may take much longer before their actions would be rewarded. Studies have shown that these distinctions may affect not only the way first responders perceive themselves and their occupation but also their tendency to develop assorted psychopathologies including PTSD (Brough, 2004; Basiñska and Wiciak, 2003; for review see Langan-Fox and Cooper, 2011). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The hidden price of repeated traumatic exposure: different cognitive deficits in different first-responders

Levy-Gigi

Richter‐Levin

Kéri

2014

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Studies on first responders who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events report low levels of PTSD symptoms and diagnosis. However, neuroimaging and behavioral studies show that traumatic exposure is associated with brain and cognitive dysfunctions. Taking together it may suggest that traumatic exposure have a price, which is not sufficiently defined by the standard PTSD measures. In a recent study we revealed that similar to individuals with PTSD, non-PTSD highly exposed firefighters display a selective impairment in hippocampal related functions. In the current study we aimed to test whether different first responders display a similar impairment. We concentrated on unique populations of active duty firefighters and criminal scene-investigators (CSI) police, who are frequently exposed to similar levels and types of traumatic events, and compared them to civilian matched-controls with no history of trauma-exposure. We used a hippocampal dependent cue-context reversal paradigm, which separately evaluates reversal of negative and positive outcomes of cue and context related information. We predicted and found that all participants were equally able to acquire and retain stimulus-outcome associations. However, there were significant differences in reversal learning between the groups. Performance among firefighters replicated our prior findings; they struggled to learn that a previously negative context is later associated with a positive outcome. CSI police on the other hand showed a selective impairment in reversing the outcome of a negative cue. Hence after learning that a specific cue is associated with a negative outcome, they could not learn that later it is associated with a positive outcome. Performance in both groups did not correlate with levels of PTSD, anxiety, depression or behavioral inhibition symptoms. The results provide further evidence of the hidden price of traumatic exposure, suggesting that this price may differ as a function of occupation.

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“…Conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and chronic fatigue are reported in firefighters and police officers who have worked in disasters [10] Slottje et al [2] evaluated the QoL of firefighters and police officers exposed to a Dutch air disaster that had occurred 8.5 years before and concluded that these emergency responders exhibited decreased QoL, even after many years. Voelker et al [15] evaluated soldiers who worked in the first Gulf War and found that it persistently negatively impacted their QoL.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Few studies have assessed the influence on the QoL of professionals who have worked in mass disasters [2] [7]. Firefighters and police officers are the most studied populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health-Related Quality of Life of Experts Who Worked in Air Disasters in S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil

Gianvecchio¹,

Muñoz²,

Lancellotti³

2018

JBBS

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Aim: To evaluate the influence of identifying victims of air disasters in São Paulo on experts' quality of life (QoL). Methods: QoL was evaluated using the abbreviated version of the World Health Organization (WHO) quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-bref). We assessed 29 forensic experts who worked in air disasters in São Paulo and 29 experts who have not worked. The results were analyzed with Student's t-tests; we compared the QoL scores of individuals at the time of the accident with their current QoL scores, and the scores of the control group were compared with the current scores of the disaster group. Results: Statistical analyses revealed a significant decrease in forensic expert QoL when they worked at the accident site, and this result was evident in all WHOQOL-bref domains. No significant difference was observed between the experts' current QoL scores and those of the control group. Conclusions: The identification of air disaster victims in the city of São Paulo significantly decreased expert health-related QoL (HRQoL) with regard to physical and psychological aspects, social relationships and environment domains. This disturbance on the QoL was not persistent over the years.

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Health-related quality of life of firefighters and police officers 8.5 years after the air disaster in Amsterdam

Abstract: This study demonstrates that professional disaster assistance workers are at risk for a lower HRQoL, even after years.

Cited by 29 publications

References 45 publications

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

The hidden price of repeated traumatic exposure: different cognitive deficits in different first-responders

Health-Related Quality of Life of Experts Who Worked in Air Disasters in S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil

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Health-related quality of life of firefighters and police officers 8.5 years after the air disaster in Amsterdam

Abstract: This study demonstrates that professional disaster assistance workers are at risk for a lower HRQoL, even after years.

Cited by 29 publications

References 45 publications

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

After the fire: the mental health consequences of fire disasters

The hidden price of repeated traumatic exposure: different cognitive deficits in different first-responders

Health-Related Quality of Life of Experts Who Worked in Air Disasters in S&amp;atilde;o Paulo, Brazil

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Health-Related Quality of Life of Experts Who Worked in Air Disasters in São Paulo, Brazil