Coping Skills In Firefighters

Most firefighters are known to not be open with sharing how they feel because it can possibly ruin their reputation as a firefighter and in the firehouse. It was not until military personnel were presenting symptoms that are currently known to be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Meroney presents the article with a list of the most common signs that can be observed in the firefighter. Signs such as substance abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, and loneliness, once these signs are present try to talk with the firefighter and see what is affecting them. They need professional help to cure this disorder. The fire service is known to be a large family that watches out for each other, the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation created the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. In which, number 13- behavioral health, this initiative helps prevents firefighter’s deaths. Meroney basically goes over the basics of

Coping mechanisms are used almost as a buffer to provide comfort to an otherwise uncomfortable situation. They act usually as a small dose of normal in a strange situation.

Suicide rates are on the increase among firefighters. In fact, the rates are beginning to catch up with the rates of law enforcement officers. Some of the same stressors affect both groups and more corporate culture changes are needed to ensure that the best possible assistance is provided to first responders who are feeling so stressed that they experience suicidal ideations.Little boys and girls often dream of becoming firefighters. The Halloween costume with the big red hat has been a perennial favorite for generations now. Every child loves the red trucks, the sirens, and the perception that firefighters are heroes as they save lives, help people, and save property. And they are heroes, selfless heroes who should be celebrated perhaps more

Ben-Zur and Zeidner (1996), replicating their own study, tested Matud’s (2004) theory on socialization and role constraint without the limitation of retrospective data. The study compared patterns of coping reactions with coping strategies in 600 adult respondents (228 men and 372 women) during war (stressful circumstance) and after war (daily routine). It was predicted that the socialization hypotheses would see women use more emotion focused responses whereas the role constraint hypotheses would see similar responses. Results indicated that during war, women scored higher than men on 12 out of 15 subscales of coping. Women adopted a higher use of positive problem solving strategies such as active planning, favoured outlook and engaging social support related to family and home. Further, women used a wider range of coping strategies, but suffered higher anxiety than men. Men reported more coping responses such as venting, denial and acceptance of their circumstances, although the war situation was by

Major Dees presents 12 resilience skills in our lecture notes. Of the twelve skills he mentioned, I see five skills that seem to focus on issues related to cognitive behavioral therapy. These five resilience skills are: 1. Activating Events, Thoughts, and Consequences - which is identifying thoughts about activating events and the consequences of those thoughts.

If aggression is the result of trying to escape a demand, then follow through with the demand using the 3-step guided compliance (tell, show, do).

Since the 1900s, the field of crisis intervention has developed concepts and practices that focus on civilian populations and individuals exposed to harmful situations such as the military. Moreover, disaster mental health that targets first responders is a field of practice that has developed during the same period. The development of this field of crisis intervention that targets first responders was influenced by various factors i.e. the realization of occupational risk these individuals are exposed to, emergence of critical incident stress management, and the increase in global terrorism (Castellano & Plionis, 2006, p.327).

Coping is something that everyone has experienced in their lifetime, whether it be over something significant or insignificant we have all experienced it. In an academic journal published in 2003, authors Gerhard Anderson, and Mimmie Willebrand stated, “Coping has been defined as the process of managing demands (external or internal) that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (S97). There have often been thought to be two main types of coping strategies, these strategies are problem-focused and emotional-focused coping (Heyman et al. 154). These two strategies differ from each other because, “problem-focused coping is often described as managing the problem, while emotion-focused coping is directed at regulating emotional responses to the problem” (Heyman et al. 154). Anderson and Willebrand have stated that coping is to serve two distinct purposes: to do away with the problem...and to regulate emotional reactions (S97). There are many different reasons that people cope and many different ways that people do it, but if not done right can cause a person emotional turmoil and make them inherit mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. Three ingredients in the conceptualization of coping are as follows, (1) coping need not be successful, but an effort must be made; (2) this effort need not be expressed in actual behavior, but can affect cognition as well; and (3) a cognitive appraisal of the taxing situation is a prerequisite for initiating coping attempts (Anderson and

Social support is an integral part of our lives and plays a significant role in our individual and family wellbeing. Research evidence on social support suggests that people are less susceptible to harsh circumstances than they would in the absence of social support. The phenomenon of psychological stress has been studied and examined from a social support perspective, leading to conclusions that suggest that social support may mediate the experience of stress and also increase coping skills. Essentially psychological stress has been documented as having a lot to do with individual appraisal, yet it has been acknowledged that other factors may also play a role in the appraisal process contributing to stress. Social support is a general word used to define an idea of support systems in various contexts. Furthermore it is impossible to understand the relationship

Basically, the CBT program emphasizes psychoeduation about ADHD, training focused on developing and implementing efficacious coping strategies, such as good planning, organizing, reducing distractibility, cognitive restructuring, time management, reducing procrastination, and improving communication to effectively manage the symptoms of ADHD in everyday life (Ramsay, & Rostain, 2011; Houghton, Alsalmi, Tan, Taylor, & Durkin, 2013). Essentially, CBT can be practical and helpful in an efficient manner in which individuals with ADHD have a structural environment with easy to follow step-by-step guide that provides a controllable direction and detectable improvement.

2.1. What is effective about these strategies for coping with stress, and why did they work?

In another study in which 267 participants from a large urban fire department in the southeastern United States participated, results failed to show that levels of social support can be a predictor of the onset of PTSD (Farnsworth, 2011). A separate study

N., & Morash, M. (1999)). Social support from others helps people to deal with job stress. Social support for females is likely to result in effective coping with stress. Studies found that women were better at using their support system because they talk with each other to cope with their

A potential explanation for this finding may be the role of coping mechanisms on ameliorating emotional distress. For instance, Torres, Driscoll and Burrow (2010) noted that active coping behaviors reported lower levels of stress due to discrimination. Torres and colleagues argued that coping strategies may have a buffering or exacerbating effect on distress associated with discrimination and microaggressions. Torres and colleagues specified that active coping strategies serve a protective function when ascriptions of intelligence or personal ability microaggressions are encountered (Torres, Driscoll and Burrow, 2010). Thus, it is possible that when participants engaged in coping behaviors, this influenced their level of emotional distress.

Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce or minimize stressful events. There are two general coping strategies which have been distinguished. Problem-focused strategies are efforts to do something active to alleviate stressful circumstances, where as emotion-focused coping strategies involve efforts to regulate the emotional consequences of stressful or potentially stressful events. Typically, people use both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping in their stressful episodes, which suggests that both types of coping are useful for most stressful events (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980).