Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Depressive Symptoms and Marital Conflicts in Relation to Trauma Exposure among Firefighters in Sarawak.

Alia Fadaliana, Majani (2020) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Depressive Symptoms and Marital Conflicts in Relation to Trauma Exposure among Firefighters in Sarawak. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

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Abstract

Multiple exposures to life threatening events may lead to the diagnosis for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depressive disorder especially among high-risk profession namely firefighters. Various consequences can be identified as a result of the exposure to traumatic events for instance marital conflicts among those who affected. Scant literatures have shown that there are very limited study investigating trauma exposure, PTSD, depressive symptoms, and marital conflicts among firefighters. Yet, there is no study conducted to investigate the psychological effect of trauma exposure on high-risk group especially in Malaysia. Thus, the present study explores the relationship between trauma exposure, PTSD and depression in relation to marital conflicts among firefighters in Sarawak. A cross-sectional research design was adopted to examine the relationship between trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms and marital conflicts. The variables were measured using Life Events Checklists (LEC-5) for exposure to trauma, The PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) for PTSD symptoms, The Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD) for depressive symptoms and Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R) to measure marital conflict. Types of data analysis used in present study were Independent sample t-test, One-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analyses, Mann-Whitney U-test, Chi-Square analyses and Multi linear regression analyses. A total number of 258 firefighters from Fire and Service Department of Malaysia based in Sarawak participated in this study. Results revealed that 18.1% reported having PTSD symptoms based on the PCL-5 cut off-score of 33 and 18.5% reported having depressive symptoms. The result also indicates 10.8% respondent reported having both PTSD and depressive symptoms. The most prevalent trauma reported were fire and explosion, natural disaster, motor-vehicle accident and death of family members. Longer years of services do not predict PTSD and depressive symptoms among firefighters. Problem solving and communication served as a significant predictor of marital conflicts domain for depressive symptoms. Present study suggests that proper plan for treatment and intervention is needed to increase the awareness on psychological well-being among high-risk profession namely firefighters prior to multiple exposures to traumatic events in carrying their job duty. Proper intervention programme also should be initiated for the spouse of the firefighters in dealing with traumatic partner.

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