Mental Health Risk Factors Related to COVID-19 among Canadian Public Safety Professionals

Date
2022-12-26
Authors
Wagner, Shannon
Di Nota, Paula
Groll, Dianne
Lentz, Liana
Shields, Robyn, E.
Carleton, R. Nicholas
Cramm, Heidi
Wei Lin, Becky
Anderson, Gregory, S.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Abstract

Public safety personnel (PSP) are known to experience difficult and demanding occupational environments, an environment that has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Firefighters, paramedics, and public safety communicators were among the front-line workers that continued to serve the public throughout the course of the pandemic. The present study considered the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-reported symptoms of mental health challenges in Canadian firefighters, paramedics, and public safety communicators. Participants were firefighters (n = 123), paramedics (n = 246), and public safety communicators (n = 48), who completed an online survey, including demographics, questions related to COVID-19 exposure and worry, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, the Social Interaction Phobia Scale, and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-5. Results revealed that risk factors for increased mental health symptom reporting were paramedic occupation, self-identified female, younger in age, COVID-19 personal contact, requirement to self-isolate, and self-perception of COVID-19 contraction (without confirmation through testing). The COVID-19 pandemic should be considered a risk factor for increased mental health symptom reporting in PSP.

Description
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords
firefighters, paramedics, public safety communicators, COVID-19, mental health
Citation
Wagner, S., Di Nota, P. M., Groll, D., Lentz, L., Shields, R., Carleton, R. N., Cramm, H., Wei Lin, B., Anderson, G. S. (2023). Mental Health Risk Factors Related to COVID-19 Among Public Safety Professionals. Psychiatry International, 4, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3390/psychiatryint4010001