THE SEVERITY OF EMERGENCY OPERATION RELATED STRESSORS IN THE MEDICAL EMERGENCY TECHNICIANS IN EAST AZERBAIJAN PROVINCE

One of the most important strategies for reducing workplace stress is to identify the severity of stressors. Little information is available about stress intensity factors in the creation of employment for emergency personnel in Iran. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the severity emergency operations stressors in the emergency medical technicians.

According to this descriptive-correlational study, 247 technicians working in disaster and emergency management centers of East Azerbaijan province participated. For data collection, a questionnaire which has two sections to investigate the personal, social and occupational and a questionnaire to evaluate extreme stressful was used. Data analyzed by using SPSS ver. 13 software by using descriptive – inferential statistics.

The results showed that, the average stress intensity factors were above average (3 of 5). The most important stressors factors are, contacting infectious disease, die of a patient, crashing with an ambulance, delay in reaching a place, and driving at high speed. The least important factors are contacting with hospital emergency personnel. In this study, the severity of stress was associated with education level and employment. Also a significant association between stress and experience with mission work was shown.

In this study, job stressors during emergency operations as factors of patient care in acute circumstance, situations threatening the safety of personnel and the fast emergency dispatch were the strongest stressors reported.