About the Research Study | Oklahoma State University

Overview

Monitoring the mental health of first responders (e.g., firefighters, police, healthcare professionals) has become an increasingly important issue as first responders are integral for a well-functioning of society.

At work, first responders are exposed to hazards inherent in the nature of their jobs (e.g., exposure to death and injury, threats to personal safety) as well as job related hardships (e.g., long work hours, interrupted sleep). The high levels of stress associated with first responder jobs can have deleterious effects on mental health and well-being. Existing research points to the severe stressors that first responders experience and the unhealthy/negative coping strategies they commonly use as primary contributing factors.

Creation and Implementation

The research program was devised in early 2020 via contact with firefighters with interest in addressing issues related to mental health, PTSD, and suicide for firefighters in their departments.

The research team consisted of Drs. Greco, Li, and Huntsman, who had contact with firefighters from across the country through the Fire and Emergency Management Program at OSU.

Our survey findings have led to significant organizational changes in multiple departments:

Budget Justifications

Budget justifications for a Mental Health Coordinator

Contract enhancements

Contract enhancements for behavioral services at a Public Safety Occupational Health Clinic

Changes to operations

Changes to operations that affect sleep and emergency alarms for firefighters

Therapy dogs

Addition of therapy dogs and expanded teams for peer support within the department

Peer-support

Peer-support personnel visited every fire station/department to provide information on the fire departments’ mental health resources

News & Media Coverage

In addition to the positive organizational changes, the research to date has appeared in a number of news and media outlets.

The work related to the Behavioral Health Program at the Charlotte Fire Department was reported on the 6 o’clock local news, an article about the team’s work was written for Firehouse magazine (“COVID-Related Stressors’ Impact on Fire Service Members), and both Dr. Greco and Dr. Huntsman appeared on the 24/48 Podcast to discuss the research findings.

Data CollectionThe online survey will be deployed at two points in time (with different content at each time point. Separate surveys help to control for potentially spurious effects and allow us to limit survey fatigue by keeping each survey relatively short (about 15 minutes). Survey 1 and 2 will be approximately four weeks apart. Overall, our main goals include:

1.

Secure a random sample size large enough to assess leadership and culture variance at the station, department, and country levels

2.

Author, deliver, and present rigorous reports of results to participating departments (which helps incentivize participation), and develop journal manuscripts for peer review and present at academic conferences

3.

Assess the generalizability of our results across career types (career, volunteer, and combination), organizational sizes, community types (urban, suburban, and rural), and the sectors (public, private, and nonprofit)

4.

Continue internal and external validation of our original stressor and withdrawal scales which will expand our knowledge on the most problematic types of events and their outcomes, guiding both research and leaders on intervention strategies

Recruitment Procedure

We adopt the definition of local “first responder” from Section 2 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. § 101) for the recruitment criteria.

We will target a pool of approximately 10,000 first responders nationwide in this study. Assuming a 20-30% response rate typical of management research, which should provide approximately 2,000 - 3,000 matched responses.

College of

Engineering, Architecture and Technology

About our research