Stress and psychological resilience in intervention and rescue activities

Abstract

Nature of intervention and rescue personnel activity places them at the top of professions that face a considerable number of occupational health and safety risks. Often, this occupational category does not face a single safety risk, but a complex combination of risk factors, including unpredictability of situations in which they are required to work. Emergence of stress and other psychosocial risks in work processes requires the implementation of an anticipatory attitude and a constant level of vigilance to identify and evaluate them. In intervention and rescue, the issue of regulating and self-regulating the individual’s behaviour is essential, as exceptional acts performed in unusual conditions require adaptive mechanisms as close as possible to perfection. Developing resilience should focus on amplifying already present strengths (physical and mental characteristics and abilities), rather than managing negative effects of operational stressors. The current paper presents a theoretical approach of the concept of resilience, appliable to intervention and rescue activities and suggests several ways to develop rescuer’s resilience.