Tackling the stress factor

By Dani Cooper

The Australian, Higher Education Section

January 28, 2004

UNIVERSITY of NSW PhD student Rachel Guthrie has beaten a world of well-funded researchers in pinpointing the people most likely to suffer acute post traumatic stress disorders.

Her study, which is being hailed internationally, will help military and emergency services devise training methods to cut staff losses due to stress-related illnesses.

Ms Guthrie's supervisor, Richard Bryant, said her findings had already been acclaimed as landmark work. "This is a question the field has been asking for many years and for her to pull this off is a coup," Professor Bryant said.

The toll of PTSD on emergency services and military can be overwhelming. A South Australian study of 459 Ash Wednesday firefighters found 21 per cent suffered life-interfering trauma 29 months after the event.

In NSW during the past two years, 60 per cent of police discharged for being medically unfit were pensioned off because they suffered PTSD or because it contributed to their poor health.

For the past three years, Ms Guthrie has been working with 85 volunteer recruits from the NSW Fire Service to uncover psychological and biological predictors of PTSD. She produced fear responses in each of the recruits by subjecting them to a loud noise. She then took note of physical responses, including heart rate, sweat gland activity and eye blink rate.

"While most people get used to the stimulus after several repetitions, a sub-group of individuals continues responding to the noise – they keep showing biological signs of fear," the 33-year-old said.

Her experiment was repeated three times with the volunteers – before exposure to any trauma situation; immediately after and six months later. Professor Bryant said Ms Guthrie's study was unique because it tapped into people before they were exposed to trauma and took a "hard core" biological approach.

He said the biology of fear was an area of growing importance for research – particularly during times of war and terrorism.

"North Americans are very interested in this whole field of research and for us to get there first is good for Australia and good for our unit," he said. "If we can build into (military and emergency services) training protocols that can reduce this particular response to fear that can be of enormous benefit (in improving retention of staff) to the military and emergency services."

NSW Fire Service capability development director Graham Dewsnap said the incidence of PTSD among those leaving the service was now very, very low.

He attributed this to strong support services already in place, but said Ms Guthrie's study would validate the approach the service was taking and ensure support was "focused in the right way".

He said the fire service's involvement in the study was an important community service as the results would benefit other emergency services such as ambulance, SES and police staff.