Prevalence and Related Factors of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Emergency Medical Technicians; a Cross-sectional Study

• Published in: Archives of academic emergency medicine Vol. 9; no. 1; p. e35
• Main Authors: Khazaei, Afshin, Navab, Elham, Esmaeili, Maryam, Masoumi, Habib
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Iran Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences 01-01-2021
• Subjects: diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders; emergency medical services; Emergency medical technicians; Original Research; post-traumatic; stress disorders; post-traumatic; diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders; stress disorders; Emergency medical technicians; emergency medical services
• ISSN: 2645-4904
• DOI: 10.22037/aaem.v9i1.1157

Ongoing exposure to a variety of Pre-hospital Emergencies (PE) has placed Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) at serious psychiatric compromise such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The present study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and associated factors of PTSD among EMTs.
This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on EMTs in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in west of Iran. A baseline information questionnaire including personal work-related characteristics and the PTSD checklist of DSM-5 (PCL-5) were used for data collection. Non-parametric tests and multivariate linear regression were used to evaluate the associated factors of PTSD in these participants.
Among the participants, 22% of technicians had PTSD-diagnostic criteria. The mean total PCL-5 score was 21.60 ± 11.45, while the scores were 38.02 ± 6.08 and 17.47 ± 8.36 in the PTSD-diagnosed and undiagnosed groups, respectively. The most common symptom of the clusters was negative alterations in cognition with a mean score of 7.42 ± 4.63. After adjusting confounders, the number of missions (t= 2.50, P= 0.013), work experience (t= -3.24, P= 0.001) and number of shifts (t: 26.38, P < 0.001) were significantly corelated with PCL-5 score.
The results indicated that the prevalence of PTSD among EMTs personnel of Hamedan province is high. EMTs with the age of ≤ 30 years, work experience of ≤ 10 years, married status, informal employment, emergency medical technician's degree, and more than 8 shifts per month, as well as no previous training history had a higher total PCL-5 score.