Personality and Lifestyles in Voluntary Firemen

Abstract

Background:

The main objective of this study was to verify if the Lifestyles are related with the type of Personality of the firefighters. Another objective was to verify if stress is related with the Lifestyles adopted.

Methods:

This was a transversal study applied to 146 Firefighters of Leiria, with ages between the 17 and 60 years (44 female and 102 the male). We used the NEO-Pi-R to analyze Personality and the Lifestyles Appraisal Questionnaire.

Results:

We found a significant statistical correlation between the Lifestyle Part I (risk factors) and the Neuroticism, that suggests that these citizens tend to have a bigger risk to developing illnesses. They present higher values of concern, nervousness, hypochondriacs and they have more disability answers of coping. They tend to be emotionally unsafe, revealing, sometimes, feelings of incompetence. They also show sadness, fear, embarrassment, anger and guilt. We also found significant statistical between the lifestyle Part I (risk factors) and the Lifestyle Part II (Stress). Indicates that a higher risk of developing illness is related to higher levels of stress. It was verified that the citizens present high factors of risk for their health and that this factor helps to increase the loss of control of the perception of stress.