Effect Of Perceived Stress On Quality Of Professional Life Among Firefighters

With the development of society, firefighters take on more expanded roles at work. They undertake arduous tasks of protecting people’s health and lives. After the emergency tasks, they may feel vulnerable to negative psychological responses (such as fear, frustration, numbness, anger and so on), which has important effects on their quality of professional life. To further maintain firefighters’mental health, we need to pay more attention to this field.From the perspective of positive psychology, the present study paid close attention to the important positive emotion of quality of professional life among firefighters, compassion satisfaction. The focus of present study was mainly on positive perspective, which was not only limited to reduction of the negative consequences of the rescue work, but also emphasize improvement of the psychological satisfaction and positive benefits.On the basis of previous studies, the present study explored quality of professional life and coping strategies among firefighters, and discussed the mediating effects of different coping strategies between perceived stress and quality of professional life. The Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of Professional Quality of Life Scale (C-Pro-QOL Scale) were examined among firefighters. The subscales of the C-Pro-QOL Scale demonstrated an excellent construct and cross validation and good internal consistency. Moreover, the mediating effects of different coping strategies between perceived stress and quality of professional life were also investigated. The main results were described as follows:(1) The Chinese version of Professional Quality of Life Scale was consist of three dimensions:compassion satisfaction, second trauma and job burnout. The reliability and validity of C-Pro-QOL Scale for firefighters was very good.(2) Perceived stress was one of the factors contributing to quality of professional life among firefighters. Perceived stress was significant and negatively correlated with compassion satisfaction, and was significant and positively correlated with second trauma and job burnout.(3) Problem-solving coping strategy was significant and positively correlated with compassion satisfaction; and avoidance coping strategy was also significant and positively correlated with second trauma and job burnout.(4) Problem-solving coping strategy and emotion coping strategy mediated the effect of perceived stress on compassion satisfaction; and avoidance coping strategy mediated the effect of perceived stress on second trauma and job burnout.