Crisis intervention

Summary

Objective: Emergency service personnel run an increased risk of suffering from job related traumatization. Though still missing the proof of effectiveness, early intervention support, mostly based on the Mitchell debriefing model (CISD), is provided by various professionals (physicians, psychologists, chaplains) and semi professionals, so called peers, within the emergency service organizations. While multiple studies critically discuss the effects of CISD and other interventions, little is known about the attitude of emergency service personnel towards these techniques. Aim of this study was therefor to find out which factors have an effect on the attitude towards early mental health service. Material and methods: 90 active duty emergency service personnel answered a self constructed questionnaire about their preference concerning the professionalism of the intervention providers and the setting (group versus individual counseling). Results: In our study we could show, that depending on age, gender and pre-experience preferences concerning early intervention differs. While male emergency service personnel preferred chaplains and group session settings, female personnel prefer individual counseling by psychologists. Irrespective of age and gender, physicians are refused as early psychological help providers. Conclusions: The implicit assumption of an overall preference for group sessions and peer support as it is being provided today by the critical incident stress management system was not supported by our research. The observed gender and age differences in preferred intervention methods underline the necessity of individualized prevention programs instead of the wide spread “all fits one approach”.

Keywords

Psychotrauma - post crisis intervention - debriefing - mental health service utilization

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