Individual and organizations factors associated with professional quality of life in Florida EMS personnel

Personnel who work in emergency medical services (EMS) face work environments which are high stress. These can lead to burnout, secondary traumatic stress (STS), and a reduction of compassion satisfaction (CS). However, very little is known about what individual and work factors influence these negative coping mechanisms in EMS personnel. It is also unknown how perceived organizational and coworker support, debriefing methods, or individual characteristics are associated with the aforementioned coping mechanisms in EMS personnel. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A cross-sectional administration of surveys to Florida EMS personnel was done. A total of 351 individuals who regularly performed EMS tasks completed the survey. Three regression analyses were carried out, utilizing the three ProQOL 5 subscales as the dependent variables. The Perceived Coworker Support survey, Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, the Brief Resilience Survey and questions regarding debriefing practices were included.

Both organizational support and psychological resilience were found to be related to higher CS as well as lower burnout and STS. Coworker support was associated with higher CS. Informal debriefing was associated with higher CS and lower burnout. Several individual factors were also statistically significant, specifically education with CS, being a volunteer and race with burnout, and working part time or volunteering with STS.

There are limitations due to the nature of cross-sectional survey design and due to the sample size. The varying circumstances which EMS personnel work also hinders generalizability.

This study displays statistical relationships between factors which EMS agencies could use to increase employee job satisfaction and potentially reduce turnover.