Perceived stress, coping strategies and general health among firefighters in the Seine-et-Marne department

Introduction. - Due to the nature of their internal security missions (fires, traffic accidents, natural, industrial and technological disasters), firefighters are exposed to human suffering and stress on a daily basis. Although there is an abundance of studies on post-traumatic stress disorder in firefighters, there is a lack of scientific literature on the measurement of perceived stress and coping strategies used by firefighters to deal with these stressful situations. Objectives. - 1) to compare our sample of firefighters to the general population concerning perceived stress, coping strategies, and general somatic and psychological health, 2) to analyze and compare these results on different subcategories of firefighters: male and female, volunteer or professional status, officer or non-commissioned rank, seniority of less than one year or more than five years. Material and method. - An Internet link was sent to 82 fire fighters in the Seine-et-Marne department by their center chief, including a socio-demographic questionnaire as well as three self-administered questionnaires measuring perceived stress (PSS-10), coping strategies (WCC-R), and general health (GHQ-28). The anonymity of the agents and the confidentiality of the data were respected, and a voluntary and informed consent form was signed in advance. Results. - Firefighters were no more stressed than the general population, but they used emotion-focused coping strategies and sought out social support services less frequently. On the other hand, female firefighters reported more stress, more frequent use of emotion-focused coping, and had more severe health indicators than their male colleagues. Conversely, no significant differences were found between volunteer and professional firefighters, nor between officers and other hierarchical classes, nor between agents who had been in service for less than one year or for more than five years. Conclusion. - Although the low proportion of officers and women in our sample is a methodological limitation to our study, it does allow us to question the mental health of women in this profession. Future research is needed to better understand the psychological reality of women in the corps and to open the debate on the need for feminization of the profession.