Groundbreaking Data Collected on Mental Health of First Responders

Groundbreaking data collected on mental health of first responders Operational Stress Carleton RN, Afifi TO, Turner S, et al. Mental disorder symptoms among public safety personnel in Canada. Can J Psychiatry. Jan. 1, 2017. [Epub ahead of print, visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0706743717723825.] Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other operational stress injuries (OSI) are both ubiquitous and harmful within the public safety community. Although recent focus has given rise to increased awareness to mental health issues, barriers to the development of evidence-informed prevention and treatment regimens continue to exist. Undesirable stigma associated with mental health issues has been a very difficult hurdle for the public safety community. Much progress has been made toward reduction of stigma; however, efforts need to continue in order for mental health to be truly improved for public safety personnel. Another fundamental barrier to providing meaningful response to the mental health needs of public safety personnel is a true understanding of the detailed nature and scope of the problem. Numbers matter! Until recently, there existed a paucity of reliable data on OSI symptom prevalence and, potentially of equal importance, what differences or similarities exist within the specific public safety communities (e.g., police, EMS, fire, etc.). Realizing the critical importance of this data, the Canadian Institute for Public Safety and Treatment (CIPSRT) developed a study desi...
Source: JEMS Operations - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Columns Operations Source Type: news