Population Health Research Brief Series

Emergency medical service (EMS) clinicians spend their careers responding to other people’s worst moments, and that steady exposure to trauma puts them at serious risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. Most programs built to help first responders cope only step in once symptoms are already severe, leaving many clinicians without support for the everyday stress of the job.

This brief describes a pilot test of a new self-guided digital training that asks EMS clinicians daily questions about managing stress and recovering after tough shifts.

The authors find that clinicians who used the training found more meaning in their daily work stressors than clinicians who did not, and this advantage grew the longer they used it.