Missoula Valley Critical Incident Stress Management Team
COMX 460 & 461 Spring 2016
By: Sophie Biechler, Maille Cavalier, Amanda Foley, Jane Metcalf, and Jacob Reed,
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Introduction
Missoula Critical Incident Stress Management Team, referred to as CISM for short, is an
organization that contracts with local emergency response teams in Missoula County. It is a local
volunteer group of carefully selected and trained members with experience in one of the
emergency services (peer members) or licensed mental health professionals (clinical members)
(Hodgetts, 2014). Founded in 1988, CISM more specifically provides debriefings and diffusing
with individuals and teams who are affected after critical incidents. Debriefings are coordinated
events that are planned as group settings to air feelings and thoughts about a critical incident in a
judgement free and non-hostile environment. Defusings are immediately following a critical
incident, the purpose being to address immediate concerns and needs of the emergency
responders. The team responds upon request, 24/7, to any local entity with emergency personnel
within Missoula County where a critical incident has occurred (Hodgetts, 2014). CISM teams
are often made up of twelve active members who utilize pre-established, nationally used and
proven techniques help manage emergency responders psychological and physiological health in
the wake of critical incidents. The entirety of the current CISM team expressed desire to assess
awareness, perceptions and opinions of their program among local emergency services.
Rationale
In order for CISM teams to better serve local emergency response groups, it is important
to gauge the awareness, perceptions, and opinions based on experience with the CISM program
among local emergency response teams, such as the volunteer fire departments, sheriff's office,
police and highway patrol, as well as other emergency services and/or dispatchers in Missoula.
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Moreover, as part of this project the research team sought to find out just how local emergency
teams are currently using CISM or would be willing to incorporate CISM into their work. Given
this, local response teams mentioned above were given a survey to discover these aspects.
The research was focused to gauge:
The level of awareness of CISM services
Current opinions by those who have taken part in services offered through CISM
Current perceptions of those who are aware of CISM
The belief that CISM is a useful asset
The likelihood of use by those made aware of CISM
Methods
A written survey was conducted among volunteer fire departments, Missoula Rural Fire
Department, Missoula County Sheriffs Department and the Missoula County Emergency
Communication Department. Surveys were distributed to members of the Missoula County
Sheriffs Office at morning and evening briefings on both sides of the week to insure coverage of
all patrol deputies. There were surveys left with a lieutenant at the sheriffs office that were
meant to be distributed to administrative members, however these surveys were not completed.
Surveys were given to the top line supervisor of Missoula City Fire Department and distributed
through their chain of command. There was no way to determine the response rate of these as the
surveys were combined with Missoula Rural Fire Departments surveys prior to their return to
the research team. The Emergency Communication Department had surveys provided to a
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supervisor who was also a member of the CISM team, after which the surveys were disseminated
amongst dispatchers and returned to the research team after completion.
The survey was completely anonymous and voluntary. There were respondents who made
their identity known by signing and placing their contact information on the survey, for the
purpose of safeguarding the integrity of our promise of anonymity we redacted such information
prior to processing the data. All attempts were made to have a research team member present
with a CISM member at all survey locations, however due to scheduling constraints this was not
always possible. As an incentive to participate, each survey had an attached cover page that, once
completed, was entered into a lottery for a $75.00 prize. Once the survey was completed, and we
analyzed the results and outlined them in this report.
The written questionnaire was split into these categories: awareness, perceptions,
opinions based on experience, and demographics. In the awareness category, questions were
asked that assessed an individual's knowledge of existing CISM programs, functions, and
services. Questions in the perceptions category measured current views of the program either
positive or negative. The opinions based on experience category consisted of contingency
questions that were completed by those who have used the program before. The final section,
demographics, asked whether an individual was male or female, their tenure, age, department in
which they were employed, education level, whether they were married, and if they had children.
These questions were completed at the end of the survey in order to avoid any bias due to the
assumption that a masculine gender type would be dismissive of perceived stress. The survey
was designed to minimize harm to the participants, there was no place to recount incidents that
could cause emotional distress among participants. The survey offered each individual member
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the opportunity to abstain from participating. If an individual believed that the survey started to
bring up emotional distress, they could have declined further participation. Now that the study is
complete, CISM will be provided with the written results.
Results
Sample Demographics:
Our sample group consisted of 191 members from emergency response teams in
Missoula Valley. These emergency response teams were from the volunteer fire departments
(49.2%), sheriffs office (10.2%), police (1.7%), emergency services (8.5%), and/or dispatchers
(30.5%) and 0% of the respondents were from highway patrol in the Missoula community. Of
those who worked in more than one field, 91.7% also worked in Emergency Medical Services
and 8.3% also worked with the sheriffs office.
Of the 191 respondents, 74.6% of respondents were men and 25.4% were female. 60.7%
of the respondents were married, 1% was widowed, 9.9% were divorced/separated and 23.6%
had never been married. 64.3% of the respondents had children, whereas 34.6% did not have
Fire 65.5%
Sheriffs office 21.8%
Police 5.5%
Highway patrol 0%
Emergency dispatcher .9%
EMS 6.4%
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any children. The educational levels varied from primary school to a graduate degree. 1.1%
completed primary school, 19.1% completed high school, 36.1% had some college, 11.5% had a
two-year degree, 26.8% had a four-year degree, and 5.5% had a graduate degree.
As illustrated in the table below, a significant number of respondents had more than ten
years of experience in emergency services.
Perceptions of Job Stress
Not surprisingly, a majority of the respondents indicated that their job was stressful at
82.9%, whereas only 7.5% disagreed with the statement that their job was stressful. In addition
to this, 60.8% of the responses indicated that the stress in their jobs affected their personal lives
and 44.9% said it affected their work performance. Though a majority agreed that their jobs
were stressful, when responding to the statement: I have thought about resigning due to stressful
incidents at work only 2.7% strongly agreed, 13.3% somewhat agreed, 12.2% neither disagreed
or agreed, 16.5% somewhat disagreed, and 55.3% disagreed. Despite the fact that most view
their occupation as stressful, they wish to remain in their field.
Less than one year 11.1%
1-5 years 20.1%
5-10 years 19.6%
More than 10 years 49.2%
Strongly disagree
Somewhat disagree
Neither agree or disagree
Somewhat agree
Strongly agree
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As the graph below demonstrates, only 9.5% indicated that they did not respond to any stressful
calls in a month, while everyone else had at least one per month.
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My job is stressful .5% 7% 9.6% 55.6% 27.3%
Stress levels affect my personal life
7% 10.8% 21.5% 45.2% 15.6%
Stress levels affect my work performance
9.6% 14.4% 31% 39% 5.9%
I have thought about resigning due to stressful incidents at work
55.3% 16.5% 12.2% 13.3% 2.7%
Frequency of Stressful Calls
0.00%
12.50%
25.00%
37.50%
50.00%
None 1-2 per month 5 or more per month
None 9.4%
Less than 1 per month but periodically 46.2%
1-2 per month 24.8%
3-5 per month 10.3%
5 or more per month 9.4%
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In response to stressful work situations, respondents used many different avenues to deal with
their stress. Of the respondents that answered Other a majority gave some sort of outdoor
recreation activity such as fishing, golfing, rock climbing, and hiking.
Awareness
When asking respondents whether or not they are familiar with the CISM team, we found that just under
half of th
