Judgement of Risk in Traumatized and Nontraumatized Emergency Medical Service Personnel

Abstract

This study investigated the hypothesis that posttraumatic stress is associated with a judgement of risk bias, defined as an overestimation of the likelihood of the occurrence of adverse events, as proposed by information-processing theories of posttraumatic stress disorder. Emergency medical service personnel with high PTSD symptomatology (n = 27) and without PTSD symptoms (n = 74) completed the PTSD Symptom Scale: Self-report version, the Work Experiences Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and an Event Probability Questionnaire. Analysis showed that individuals with high PTSD symptomatology exhibited significantly more judgement of risk bias, that this cognitive bias was towards a wider range of threats than those involving only the threat of external harm, and that intrusion was its best predictor.