Does Sense of Coherence promote Posttraumatic Growth after critical incidents in Austrian ambulance personnel? Klemens Ragger1,2, Michaela Hiebler-Ragger1,2, Günter Herzog1, 1 1,2,3 Hans-Peter Kapfhammer , and Human Friedrich Unterrainer 1 University Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Austria 2 Center for Integrative Addiction Research (Grüner Kreis Society), Vienna, Austria 3 Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Austria
Corresponding author: Klemens Ragger (
[email protected]) Background Ambulance personnel experience an increased number of critical incidents in the line of duty (1–3). Reason for that is their higher response rate to emergency calls (4,5) as well as an increased exposure to extreme psychological distress when compared to the fire department and the police force (6–8). Subsequently, symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) have been observed as potentially co-occurring with Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) in ambulance personnel (3,7,8). In this study, we hypothesized that Sense of Coherence (SOC), as an underlying feature, might play an important role in enabling growth after stressful experiences in Austrian ambulance personnel.
Methods Voluntary and full-time ambulance personnel (n=266) of the Austrian Red Cross ambulance service completed an online survey including the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-29), the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), and the Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R) for the assessment of PTS. In line with theoretical considerations, a two-step cluster analysis limited to four clusters and further Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) were conducted.
A
B
C
D
PTS-low PTG-low
PTS-low PTG-high
PTS-high PTG-high
PTS-high PTG-low
Measures
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
PTG
24.71
9.52
52.37
8.98
49.02
9.99
PTS
-4.14
.37
-4.07
.33
-3.47
.48
SOC
SD
F(1,3)
Post hoc
42.29 13.36 110.50**
A
