Mental disorder symptoms in Canadian HEMS personnel: a national-level study

Abstract

Emergency services personnel are regularly exposed to potentially traumatic events with substantial consequences for their mental health. Current estimations from Canadian emergency medical service (EMS) providers show a prevalence of clinically relevant symptomology of 20% or higher in anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. Interestingly, evidence from Canadian helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) demonstrates a substantially lower prevalence rate (i.e., <10%) of mental disorder symptoms. However, current Canadian data stem from a single HEMS service. A comprehensive assessment of mental disorders from a larger, nationwide sample is presently absent, which was the purpose of the current study. A sample of 215 HEMS personnel (male n = 165, 76.6%) from six Canadian provinces (AB, BC, SK, MB, ON, NS) completed an online survey measuring several mental disorder symptoms. The results revealed a prevalence of clinically elevated symptoms of 7% in posttraumatic stress disorder, 16.8% in major depressive disorder, 5.6% in anxiety, and 3.7% stress. Paramedics reported a significantly higher prevalence of clinically elevated symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder symptoms compared to other HEMS personnel. The findings indicate a higher prevalence of some mental disorder symptoms (i.e., post-traumatic disorder, major depressive disorder) compared to existing data from a single Canadian HEMS organization. There are several psychological (e.g., coping mechanisms), organizational (e.g., time for structured debriefing), and extraneous factors (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic) that may have influenced the results. Yet, the prevalence levels remain much below those reported in on-the-ground EMS workers, which warrants further investigation.