Doig, ChristopherLefevre, Nicola Louise2017-09-292017-09-2920172017http://hdl.handle.net/11023/4181This thesis investigates psychological distress in Emergency Medical Services practitioners through three pieces of inter-related research. The first examines the prevalence of compassion fatigue in all health care practitioners by systematic review of literature. The second conceptualizes three manifestations of distress (compassion fatigue, burnout, and post-traumatic stress disorder), places them in the context of EMS work by describing practitioners’ experience, and broadly strategizes ways to address them. The third measures the presence of compassion fatigue, burnout, and post-traumatic stress disorder in a sample of EMS practitioners through a survey based study. Overall, the research showed that EMS practitioners are experiencing psychological distress as compassion fatigue, burnout and PTSD, and that compassion fatigue has been identified across diverse practitioner groups in health care. Recommendations are consistently made that further research needs to be conducted to investigate root causes, and that education and support programs would be of benefit to practitioners.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Medicine and SurgeryMental HealthOccupational Health and SafetyPsychological DistressCompassion FatiguePTSDBurnoutEmergency Medical ServicesParamedicmaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/27476