Emergency Operations Related Stress Burden Among Emergency Service Operators

The staff of pre-hospital emergency medical service experience many stresses daily in the frontline of emergency responses. Critical conditions and trying to save patients’ lives make operation difficult for emergency medical technicians. The burden of stress in this job group is related with critical incidents, and functional and emotional problems that are the result of the rate of exposure and the intensity of the stressor. In this descriptive-correlation study, 320 technicians working in pre-hospital emergency bases participated. To gather data, stress burden evaluation questionnaire, which was the result of rate of exposure to stressors, was used. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software and descriptive and inferential statistics. In the present study, the most important causes of burden of stress were reported to be environmental occupational factors and patient-related factors. Mean and standard deviation of stress burden was 8.70 ± 3.61. Working with trauma patients, unrealistic expectations of the patient or their relatives, and driving in critical conditions and resuscitation of patients inflicted the highest burden of stress upon the staff. In this study, the mean score of stressor intensity was higher than the mean score of exposure to stressors and a significant correlation was seen between the rate of stress burden with number of operations, educational degree, emergency bases, and status of employment. Proper identification of stressors in terms of prevalence and intensity, leads to better understanding of these factors in pre-hospital emergency and can be of great help in prevention and control of stress burden among emergency medical service staff.