| This study investigated the factors related to the perception of stress in prehospital emergency medical professionals. Factors included college education, self-efficacy, and job function. One hundred forty four EMTs and paramedics from four different EMS providers in Texas served as participants. These participants completed a questionnaire that included several demographic questions, Speilberger's (1995) state-trait personality inventory (STPI), Sarason's (1987) social support questionnaire (SSQ), and Schwarzer's (2000) general perceived self-efficacy scale (GPSES). The STPI produces eight dependent variables. Six of these served as a measure of perceived stress, state and trait anxiety, state and trait anger, and state and trait depression.;Measured as a continuous variable, years of education was negatively correlated with state anxiety (r = -0.274, p = 0.001), state anger (r = -0.217, p = 0.009), state depression (r = -0.231, p = 0.006), and trait anxiety (t = -0.2058, p = 0.014). Since years of education was related to stress and somewhat related to self-efficacy (r = 0.17, p = 0.042) a partial correlation procedure was performed for self-efficacy (GPSES) and the stress variables that controlled for years of education. After this control, self-efficacy was positively correlated with state curiosity (r = 0.373, p = 0.0001) and trait curiosity (r = 0.419, p = 0.0001). It was negatively correlated with state anxiety (r = 0.312, p = 0.0001), state anger (r = -0.194, p = 0.021), state depression (r = -0.339, p = 0.0001), trait anxiety (r = -0.436, p = 0.0001), and trait depression (r = -0.3762, p = 0.0001).;An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare the means of the perceived stress variables for three job function groups. The job functions studied were attendant basic or intermediate, attendant paramedic, and in-charge paramedic. Significant differences were found between the groups for state anxiety, state depression, trait anxiety, and trait depression. Post-hoc multiple comparisons for all of these showed lower stress at the attendant paramedic level and higher stress for both the attendant basic-intermediates and the in-charge paramedics.;The discussion makes suggestions that the impact of education, self-efficacy, and job function may be related to the amount of skills available, the perception of confidence in those skills, and the amount of personal responsibility for patient care. |
