The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceived occupational stress levels and coping mechanisms among Emergency Medical Technicians and paramedics in Delaware County. It was proposed that EMTs and paramedics perceive environmental and job stress for which they have developed specific coping mechanisms. It was further proposed that an association exists between levels of occupational stress and coping mechanisms used by Emergency Medical Technicians and paramedics.The population of prospective subjects for the study consisted of all part-time, full-time, and volunteer EMTs and paramedics of Delaware County, Indiana. The EMTs and paramedics were surveyed by an Occupational Stress Inventory-Revised, which they completed during mandatory training sessions. Delaware County and Yorktown EMS received the questionnaire packets by the researcher one half hour before the start of the subject's shift.The design of the study was nonexperimental, descriptive, and correlational. Pearson's product moment correlation, t-test, and multivariate analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.The results indicated that there were significant differences between the coping mechanisms used by EMTs and paramedics. There were also significant differences between occupational stress levels of paid and volunteer EMTs and paramedics and rural and urban area Emergency Medical Services. There were significant relationships between four of the six stress subscales, and average number of hours worked per week in the past year among EMTs and paramedics. No significant difference was found between EMTs and paramedics and levels of occupational stress. / Department of Physiology and Health Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/186448 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Miller, Angela Kay |
| Contributors | Wood, Martin L. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 57 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
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