Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders and Burnout Syndrome among Community Paramedic Staff

Background: Community health nursing specialties is continuously changed and
updated according to the community needs, ambulance paramedics staff is one of the
specialties in community health nursing, and they play a vital role in emergencies even
at home, they play a role in advancing home care which reduces the cost in the health
care system, they deal with serious conditions such as pandemic situation as in case of
COVID-19 pandemic nowadays. So, this group of staff must be studied to understand
the occupational problems that might be facing them and help them to deal with it.
Aims of the study: the current study aimed to assess the post-traumatic stress
disorders among paramedic staff, and to evaluate the burnout syndrome severity
among paramedic staff as a community paramedic. Material and Methods: A
descriptive exploratory research design was used. Settings: The study was carried out
at once out of the seven regions served by the Egyptian Ambulance Organization
(EAO) namely Alexandria region which serves three Egyptian governorates
(Alexandria, Matrouh and Beheira governorate). Subjects: All paramedic staff
working at the chosen settings and meet the inclusion criteria (68) was recruited in the
study. Tools: Data was collected through using three tools “Paramedic Staff Health
Profile and Sociodemographic Assessment Tool, Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human
Services Survey for Medical Personnel (MBI-HSS) Tool and the Clinician
administered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) Past Month
Version. Results: The current study indicate that the studied paramedic staff has
different degree of burnout syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder with a
significant association with multivariable such as age, marital status level of education,
years of experiences, working hours per week, sleeping hours and their evaluation for
their health condition. Conclusion and Recommendations: it was concluded that, the
paramedic staff burnout inventory scale indicate that around one third of them have
high emotional exhaustion level, whereas, more than two fifths of them have low level
of personal accomplishment. Around one third have high level of depersonalization.
Furthermore, three quarters of the studied paramedic have mild, minimal distress or
disruption of activities followed by moderate, distress clearly present but still
manageable. It was recommended that, regular screening of paramedic staff should be
done for evaluating stress, depression, and anxiety. Proper management must be held at
early stage of symptoms of BOS and PTSD. Inservice stress management training
especially for invoice community paramedic staff must be executive to raise their
awareness regarding the possibility of PTSD and BOS and how to deal with.