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. 2022 Mar 31;4(1):e6133.
doi: 10.32872/cpe.6133. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Coping in the Emergency Medical Services: Associations With the Personnel's Stress, Self-Efficacy, Job Satisfaction, and Health

Roberto Rojas  1 , Maxi Hickmann  1 , Svenja Wolf  1 , Iris-Tatjana Kolassa  2 , Alexander Behnke  2
Affiliations

Coping in the Emergency Medical Services: Associations With the Personnel's Stress, Self-Efficacy, Job Satisfaction, and Health

Roberto Rojas et al. Clin Psychol Eur. .

Abstract

Background: Emergency Medical Services personnel (EMSP) are recurrently exposed to chronic and traumatic stressors in their occupation. Effective coping with occupational stressors plays a key role in enabling their health and overall well-being. In this study, we examined the habitual use of coping strategies in EMSP and analyzed associations of coping with the personnel's health and well-being.

Method: A total of N = 106 German Red Cross EMSP participated in a cross-sectional survey involving standardized questionnaires to report habitual use of different coping strategies (using the Brief-COPE), their work-related stress, work-related self-efficacy, job satisfaction, as well as mental and physical stress symptoms.

Results: A confirmatory factor analysis corroborated seven coping factors which have been identified in a previous study among Italian emergency workers. Correlation analyses indicated the coping factor "self-criticism" is associated with more work-related stress, lower job satisfaction, and higher depressive, posttraumatic, and physical stress symptoms. Although commonly viewed as adaptive coping, the coping factors "support/venting", "active coping/planning", "humor", "religion", and "positive reappraisal" were not related to health and well-being in EMSP. Exploratory correlation analyses suggested that only "acceptance" was linked to better well-being and self-efficacy in EMSP.

Conclusion: Our results emphasize the need for in-depth investigation of adaptive coping in EMSP to advance occupation-specific prevention measures.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Services; coping strategies; job satisfaction; stress; work-related self-efficacy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis Examining the Fit of Cicognani et al.’s (2009) Seven-Factor Model of Coping to the Data of this Study
Note. N = 106. Values on paths indicate standardized regression coefficients (β) and values on covariance paths indicate significant factor correlations (r). Italic values above the items display the explained variance per item (R2).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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