Psychobiological risk assessment in emergency medical service drivers: study protocol for structural equation modeling

BACKGROUND Job stress can lead to several complications including physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences. Emergency medical services (EMS) drivers are more likely to be exposed to stress than other occupations due to the nature of their job. High-risk driving and stress-related psychological responses can have irretrievable consequences. Therefore, increasing the amount of attention to traffic psychology and periodic psychobiological risk assessment for this group are essential. Hence, this paper tries to present how to develop a validated battery for assessing psychobiological risk assessment (PBRA) based on bio-centric health management (BHM). PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE The study will be conducted in two methodological and modeling phases: In the methodological phase, the psychometric properties of the Health Cube Battery (HCB) will be analyzed, and in the second phase, researchers will model BHM in Iran using a structural equation model (SEM). RESULTS The study population consists of EMS drivers. The tool that will be developed in this study is an HCB, which consists of different dimensions of BHM. CONCLUSIONS At the end of the study, a standard HCB will be developed and validated. Also, the BHM model will be mapped based on psychobiological risk assessment for EMS drivers. Other researchers can also cross-culturally adapt and use the battery, and the model could be adopted for other contexts and cultures.