Project 168882

Emergency services work is characterized by high stress situations requiring immediate intervention and by exposure to distressing events that are outside the experience of the general public. Dispatchers must cope with a rapid succession of emergency calls, interact with highly distressed callers often over a prolonged period of time, and coordinate interprofessional communications in order to achieve positive outcomes. Furthermore, dispatchers are not physically present at the site of an emergency; they often report feeling isolated and powerless to assist during the emergency and are generally unaware of the resolution of the event. The proposed research project is a pilot study aimed at generating preliminary data regarding the interactions of mental health disruptions, mediating factors, stress responses and performance in an understudied population that is regularly exposed to salient stressors. In this study, participating dispatch workers will be required to respond to a simulated 9-1-1 call from a member of the public. A number of psychosocial and physical stressors will be added to the scenarios. The participants¿ stress responses (subjective and physiological) will be assessed. Furthermore, a number of potential predictor variables will be assessed in order to determine whether they mediate responses and performance during acute events. The proposed project represents the first study in a developing program of research aimed at understanding the effects of acute stress and trauma on police dispatchers. The findings of this study will be used to inform the design of subsequent research projects aimed at examining how these factors of interest play out in real world scenarios. Furthermore, the results of this project will be crucial in guiding the development of interventions and policies for the support and training of those individuals who routinely encounter acutely stressful events.

use of simulated emergency scenarios to study acute stress responses