Research project looks into Saskatoon firefighters’ mental health

When something goes wrong, emergency responders are the first ones at the scene, helping and protecting the community. Whether they be paramedics, police officers or firefighters – all first responders are faced with a large amount of stress while on the job, which if not treated, can cause a serious impact.

In an effort to address the challenges brought on by these jobs and look into the impact support programs are having, two people have joined forces to delve deep into some of the mental health concerns facing firefighters in Saskatoon.

Read more:

• U of S partners with City of Saskatoon to evaluate firefighters’ mental health
• WCB expands ‘presumptive coverage’ list for Sask. firefighters
• Saskatoon Fire Department wants people to report encampments

Joel McNair, is a Saskatoon firefighter and Dr. Camelia Adams, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan have come together to conduct a research study, looking into the impacts of mental health for Saskatoon’s firefighters.

Speaking on the Evan Bray Show, McNair said that firefighters face a lot of challenges while on the job, many of which take a toll on their mental health.

Listen here for the full interview:

“There’s the obvious one, the traumatic calls that we respond to, dealing with the scene multiple times a day, multiple hours, and that type of thing. But then it’s just also the cumulative effect of years of service and responding to these calls,” he said.

McNair said that issues with mental health are very common for firefighters and that he himself has had to deal with them.

“I got to the point where I was unable to work because of my illness with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and so I just definitely needed the time, I needed treatment, and I needed to get better so I could get back to what I love doing, which was being a firefighter in Saskatoon,” he said.

Dr. Camelia Adams said that firefighter mental health has been an interest of hers for more than 20 years and that the research project has given her the opportunity to look deeply into the cause and how it’s affecting people in the city.

She said that the program will work by gathering data from firefighters using a survey and will examine the most common conditions, such as depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, substance use disorders, and trauma-related disorders such as PTSD.

“We want to see the mental health of firefighters in the current landscape — they are facing a higher number of calls and many emergencies, and we just don’t know at the present time what the prevalence of mental health conditions are,” she said.

“We want to do a mixed study where we want to survey the percentage, the prevalence of these conditions given the coping and the availability of resources, and to see how much they are accessed. But we also want to see individually what firefighters and their family members are telling us, kind of a qualitative exploration as well,” said Adams.