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Acute Stress Symptoms, Dissociation, and Depression among Rescue Personnel 24 Hours after the Bet-Yehoshua Train Crash in Israel: The Effects of Gender

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Yuval Palgi ,
Menachem Ben-Ezra ,
Nir Essar ,
Hilik Sofer  and
Yeela Haber
Yuval Palgi
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Sharet Building, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Menachem Ben-Ezra*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, Israel
Nir Essar
Affiliation:
Psagot Institute, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Hilik Sofer
Affiliation:
Home Front Command, Israel Defense Forces
Yeela Haber
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Education, The Open University, Raanana, Israel
*
Department of Social Work, PO Box 3, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, 40700 Israel, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Introduction:

The effect of immediate exposure to traumatic events and gender differences is under-studied in the literature. Most studies focus on acute stress disorder (ASD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) phases in order to measure gender differences, and tend to neglect the immediate expo-sure to the disaster.

Hypothesis:

The main hypothesis was that female rescue personnel would exhibit higher levels of acute stress symptoms, dissociation, and depressive symptoms in the 24 hours following a traumatic event.

Methods:

Twenty-three rescue personnel participated in a search and rescue operation at the Bet-Yehoshua train crash in Israel. The rescue personnel group was divided based on gender. Each participant completed a demographic questionnaire including questions that assessed psychological symptoms and issues such as perceived threat to life, the Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R), the Dissociative Experience Scale (DES), and the Center of Epidemiologic Studies Depression questionnaire (CES-D). Statistical inferences were calculated using t-tests and chi-square tests, along with testing of covariance (MANCOVA) in order to indentify which factors are related to psychiatric symptomatology following the immediate exposure to disaster.

Results:

The results suggest that among rescue personnel, women did not differ in their levels of acute stress, dissociation, and depressive symptoms from men.

Conclusions:

These results suggest the possibility that the gender differences in reactions to traumatic events do not emerge in the acute stress reactions (ASR) phase (up to 24 hours after the event), but later on when people have time to process the trauma. Another possibility that may explain the discrepancy between this study and the common knowledge in the literature is that women rescue personnel are considered a highly selected group, which does not reflect on the general population of women. More studies are needed in order to substantiate these results.

Keywords

acute stress symptomsdomestic disastergenderpost-traumatic stress disorderrescue personnel
Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 433 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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