Sustaining optimal performance when the stakes could not be higher: Emotional awareness and resilience in emergency service personnel (with learnings for elite sport)

What can be done about workplace wellbeing in emergency departments? 'There's no petrol for this Ferrari'

Workplace wellbeing encompasses all aspects of working life. Peak health organisations recognise that poor workplace wellbeing is costly, both to individuals and to the organisation, and the value in promoting healthy workplaces. Workplace wellbeing improves when its barriers are acknowledged and addressed, and protective factors are promoted. The Emergency Department (ED) is a place of intense and challenging activity, exacerbated by high workloads and overcrowding. This impacts negatively on patient care, staff safety and wellbeing. We held focus groups across four EDs to discuss barriers and enablers to wellbeing and found four core themes: Workplace Satisfaction; Barriers to Wellbeing; Organisational Culture that Prioritises Staff Wellbeing; Self-care and Self Compassion. From this, and existing literature, we collaboratively developed a contextualised staff wellbeing framework titled: 'Staff Wellbeing Good Practice Framework: From Surviving to Thriving, How to Protect your Wellbeing in the Emergency Department' that emphasises their values of Competence, Connection and Control.

Strategies for Coping with Occupational Trauma: A Scoping Review of the Police Officer Context

BACKGROUND

Occupational trauma is heightened among police officers due to their exposure to physical, biological, chemical, and psychological hazards. Sustained occupational trauma results in mental illness among members of the police, which is a public health issue of concern. This study aimed to report a scoping review of the literature on strategies employed by police officers for coping with occupational trauma around the globe.

METHODS

A search string, formulated from the review question of what is known about the strategies of police officers for coping with occupational trauma, was used to search for articles from databases. A total of 588 hits were screened against inclusion criteria, resulting in 36 full-text studies between 1983 and 2022 being included in this review. Data were extracted using a standardised data extraction tool. The multi-step process was used to analyse the extracted data, integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches.

RESULTS

From this review, 'adaptive coping mechanisms', involving confrontation; 'maladaptive coping mechanisms', such as self-isolation, distancing and substance use; 'resilience', relating to mental preparation, and 'seeking support systems' from family, colleagues and professionals reflected the strategies used by police officers to cope with occupational trauma. Social stigma related to mental health disorders impacts the strategies used by police officers to cope with occupational trauma.

CONCLUSIONS

the police management and healthcare practitioners must collaborate towards providing constructive environments that support and strengthen police officers' strategies for coping with occupational trauma.

Supporting emergency service workers to cope with critical incidents that can lead to psychological burden at work - developing skills in the Post Critical Incident Seminar: a qualitative interview study

BACKGROUND

Emergency service workers face critical incidents causing psychological burden. This qualitative study investigates how attending a Post Critical Incident Seminar could affect the skills of emergency service workers to overcome incidents that can cause psychological burden at work and their consequences with the following research questions: (1) How did attending the Post Critical Incident Seminar impact the skills to overcome work incidents that can lead to psychological burden? and (2) How have these skills been manifested since attending the Post Critical Incident Seminar?

METHODS

The data consists of individual interviews with fifteen emergency services workers who attended a Post Critical Incident Seminar in April 2021 in Finland. The interviews were conducted six months after the Post Critical Incident Seminar and analysed using inductive content analysis.

RESULTS

The results of the first research question formed two main categories: improved performance abilities and improved self-regulation abilities. From the results of the second research question two main categories were created: new kind(s) of well-being and readiness to help. Several upper categories and sub-categories were discovered.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results, attending a Post Critical Incident Seminar may be effective in developing skills to overcome critical incidents that can lead to psychological burden. Further follow-up studies should investigate how acquired skills from the Post Critical Incident Seminar practically affect emergency service workers and their well-being in the longer term.