First Responders and Moral Injury
First responders are portrayed as being stoic and heroic figures in modern culture. Children often aspire to become a firefighter, police officer, or paramedic. The esteemed position a first responder holds in society belies an inescapable fact: first responders are all humans. As the keepers of the social safety net, first responders encounter some of the most traumatic events in a person’s life. Not once, but every time the first responder is called to a scene they are potentially exposed to more trauma. Over the course of a thirty-year career, the first responder might encounter hundreds of traumatic events such as pediatric drownings, suicide, multi-trauma motor vehicle accidents and injuries from fires.
The result of bearing witness to traumatic events while also having to care for the patients of the traumatic event, takes a toll on the first responder. Studies show 37% of first responders meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), compared to 8% of the general population (Jitnarin et al., 2022). Further, first responders experience moral injuries (MI) while on the job. Unlike PTSD, moral injury in the first responder population is not well studied and is still a new consideration in the mental health field. Moral injury in the population can be misdiagnosed as PTSD and the rate of MI and PTSD is likely higher than reported due to barriers first responders face reporting mental health problems and accessing care. Examples first responders face to seeking mental health care are: the perceived stigma of seeking help for mental health issues, having a negative experience with a therapist in the past, and being seen as weak for seeking help (Jones et al., 2020).
