Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University.
Psychol Trauma. 2023 Sep;15(Suppl 2):S335-S345. doi: 10.1037/tra0001242. Epub 2022 May 19.
A significant proportion of military veterans successfully transition out of the military into civilian careers as first responders, such as firefighters. Like military service, being a firefighter is a high-risk profession involving exposure to aversive environments. Thus, it is possible that military experience might serve to buffer or exacerbate risk for negative psychological outcomes in firefighters. However, both occupations are associated with increased risk for psychopathology, such as PTSD, and little research has examined the effect of military service on processes that underlie stress in veterans serving as active-duty firefighters. The current study explores whether military service confers an adaptive advantage or an additional risk.
Using a case-control design, we examined differences in fear reactivity through electrodermal activity (EDA) and recording of fearful facial expressions, between 32 firefighters with and 32 firefighters without military veteran status (MVS; all men). Participants completed a semistructured, emotionally evocative interview with multiple contexts eliciting varying levels of emotion.
MVS firefighters had relatively elevated EDA across contexts. However, lower baseline levels indicated calmer resting state in MVS firefighters. There was greater incidence of lifetime PTSD in MVS compared with non-MVS firefighters (40.6% vs. 15.6%). Overall, firefighters with past PTSD had less EDA reactivity. Finally, number of military deployments was associated with higher fear expressions throughout the interview.
These findings highlight the need to consider interactions between military experience and psychiatric history in future investigations examining risk and resilience in first responders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
相当一部分退伍军人成功地从军队过渡到平民职业，成为急救人员，如消防员。与服兵役一样，当消防员是一项高风险的职业，涉及到恶劣环境的暴露。因此，军人经历可能会缓冲或加剧消防员负面心理结果的风险。然而，这两种职业都与精神病理学的风险增加有关，如创伤后应激障碍，很少有研究探讨兵役对现役退伍军人消防员压力下的过程的影响。本研究探讨了兵役是带来适应性优势还是额外风险。
使用病例对照设计，我们通过皮肤电活动（EDA）和恐惧面部表情的记录，比较了 32 名有和 32 名没有军人退伍军人身份（MVS；均为男性）的消防员之间的恐惧反应差异。参与者完成了一个半结构化的、情感唤起的访谈，有多个不同情绪水平的情境。
MVS 消防员在各种情境下的 EDA 相对较高。然而，较低的基线水平表明 MVS 消防员的静息状态更平静。与非 MVS 消防员相比，MVS 消防员一生中 PTSD 的发生率更高（40.6%比 15.6%）。总体而言，过去患有 PTSD 的消防员的 EDA 反应较小。最后，军事部署的次数与访谈过程中更高的恐惧表情有关。
这些发现强调了在未来研究中需要考虑军事经验和精神病史之间的相互作用，以研究急救人员的风险和适应能力。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2023 APA，保留所有权利）。
