Police officers, fire fighters, and emergency medical personnel are recognized for their
hard work as on-scene responders, however the role of emergency dispatch is easily
overlooked. The stressors that are seen in emergency responder work are also experienced
by emergency dispatchers. While they are not experiencing these emergencies directly, this
presents unique struggles for them.
Chaplain Russell Myers, Allina Health EMS, talks about the role of chaplains in EMS and emergency dispatch. He discusses research he's conducted about the most stressful EMS calls as well as things to consider when deciding whether to bring a chaplain into your center...
Isabel talks with Anne Camaro, assistant director of administration and training with the Cambridge Emergency Communications Department, and Jeremy DeMar, director of emergency communications for the city of Springfield, MA. They continue the discussion about the friends and family of 911 stress survey, including how it was...
Isabel talks with Liz Belmonte, training supervisor at Cambridge Emergency Communications, and Adam Timm, a 911 trainer and consultant. They discuss a survey about the effects of dispatch stress on emergency dispatchers' families, the importance of resilience, and things you can do now to minimize...
It has long been anecdotally held by emergency responders that non-medical emergency responders were less willing to accept post-incident intervention following a personally disturbing event than their medical counterparts. Aspects of emergency responder stress were studied across multiple disciplines of the emergency services: pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS), fire protection, law enforcement, and emergency department (ED) or emergency room (ER) personnel. Individual anonymous surveys were administered across the...
Empirical literature examining the health and wellness of emergency responders has continued to grow over the past decade. Yet there is a relative absence of literature on 911 telecommunicators, who are often the "first, first responders" in an emergency. Examination of work-related factors that enhance risk for stress and adverse outcomes may improve current prevention and intervention efforts in this population. Civilian 911 calltakers and dispatchers from the state of California (N = 833) participated in an online study to...
Isabel talks with Kim Rigden, psychology enthusiast and the associate director of accreditation at IAED. They discuss the importance of positive psychology in a field as stressful as emergency dispatch, the concept of feedforward, and small things you can do to make your outlook a little more positive...
Emergency dispatchers are exposed to potentially traumatic events at rates that likely exceed that of emergency first responders. Although not physically present at the time of the incident, it is likely that this repeated exposure in concert with highly stressful work conditions could lead to potentially negative emotional and physical outcomes. To date few studies have examined rates of stress related pathology and subsequent impairment in emergency dispatchers. The following study takes an initial step to investigate rates of Acute Stress Disorder, Secondary Traumatic Stress and...
During a given incident, dispatchers are under high stress balancing the workload of listening, understanding, recording, and responding to an unfolding event. These personnel work in a high stakes environment, where seconds can mean life and death. They are called upon to be the voice of reason and calm during traumatic events, and must follow policy and procedures in effectively communicating event information to a number of different user groups. The goal of this work was to demonstrate how a predictive workload equation can be used to evaluate cognitive workload of a dispatcher during a representati
