Grant: Catalyst Grant: PTSI among PSP workers

Firefighters (FF) perform physically demanding work and experience high rates of post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI) that has been linked to critical event exposure (CIE). Examples of CIE include witnessing a death, removing a recently deceased body and managing a call that involves children. Our preliminary research with a sub-sample of Thunder Bay Fire Rescue (TBFR) FF and the Thunder Bay Professional Firefighters' Association (TBPFFA) has identified that 94% of FF in Thunder Bay experienced exposure to at least one critical event in a 2-month period; 79% were in response to an incident involving 1 or 2 deaths and 40% involved removing a recently deceased body. These results suggest there is a critical need for an effective CIE management strategy for TBFR FF. Although TBFR with TBPFFA have implemented a CIE management program, the positive and/or negative impacts on FF response to CIE and PTSI is unclear. The proposed research was developed in collaboration with TBFR, TBPFFA and the Chair of their Critical Incident Response team (CIRT) to identify: a.) the burden of CIE and PTSI among TBFR FF; b.) differences in experience and impact when FF who have experienced a CIE use formal (Defusing) and informal (i.e.,Truck-to Table talks, adaptations of the Road to Mental Readiness) CIE management strategies, and c.) impact of delivering formal and informal CIE strategies on the CIRT. The study findings will be brought together in a final report that will be shared with TBFR, TBPFFA and the CIRT to include strengths and recommendations of the current program. Our study uses integrated knowledge translation to ensure our approach is meaningful to the firefighters and that findings from the study are shared with all TBPFFA FF as well as the research partners (TBFR, TBPFFA). The study findings will be used to adjust TBFR's existing CIE management program while considering the unique challenges associated with Northwestern Ontario.