{"id":6512,"date":"2024-12-11T09:15:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T14:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2025-04-17T09:07:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T13:07:59","slug":"otoole-et-al-01-this-is-itthis-is-our-normal-the-voices-of-family-members-and-first-responders-in-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/?p=6512","title":{"rendered":"O’Toole et al. 01\u2005\u2018This is it\u2026this is our normal\u2019 \u2013 the voices of family members and first responders in Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Background<\/strong> Compared to other occupational groups, first responders experience worse mental health outcomes due to duty-related trauma and occupational stressors. Despite their best efforts, they bring stress home. Consequently, first responders and the people they rely on for support, suffer from increased psychosocial difficulties, experiencing stigma and other help-seeking barriers. Family members\u2019 perspectives appear overlooked in the literature to date. We aimed to: (i) explore the lived experience of family members and first responders; and (ii) identify opportunities for engaging family members with existing organisational supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methods<\/strong> Using a participatory research approach, we conducted six longitudinal focus groups involving fourteen first responders, family members and organisational representatives. All focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong> First responders and family members shared their experiences of both joining and learning to live as members of the first responder community in Ireland. They describe their awareness of a necessary journey, representing their transition between who they were before entering this community and who they are now. Through our analysis, we identified a main theme of \u2018Crossing thresholds\u2019, characterising their transformative learning experiences- including recognising the consequences of this new role for them as individuals and for their relationship. Participants also shared how they have learned to cope with the impact of their roles and what they need to better support each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/strong> Family members are often unheard, hidden members of the first responder community in Ireland, highlighting an unmet need for organisations to acknowledge this supportive role and to offer appropriate training and resources. Training for new recruits needs to move beyond the tokenistic involvement of family members to encourage knowledge sharing among experienced and novice members. Cultural change is required to support help-seeking among and foster a sense of peer support and community among first responder families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/emermed-2024-999.1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Background Compared to other occupational groups, first responders experience worse mental health outcomes due to duty-related trauma and occupational stressors. Despite their best efforts, they bring stress home. Consequently, first responders and the people they rely on for support, suffer from increased psychosocial difficulties, experiencing stigma and other help-seeking barriers. Family members\u2019 perspectives appear overlooked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72,76,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battlab","category-blog","category-frontpage"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector.jpg",1920,1920,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-768x768.jpg",768,768,true],"large":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-1024x1024.jpg",1024,1024,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-1536x1536.jpg",1536,1536,true],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector.jpg",1920,1920,false],"kubio-fullhd":["http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/article-glyph-gradient-round-corner-icon-vector-1080x1080.jpg",1080,1080,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Alan","author_link":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Background Compared to other occupational groups, first responders experience worse mental health outcomes due to duty-related trauma and occupational stressors. Despite their best efforts, they bring stress home. Consequently, first responders and the people they rely on for support, suffer from increased psychosocial difficulties, experiencing stigma and other help-seeking barriers. Family members\u2019 perspectives appear overlooked…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6514,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions\/6514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanbatt.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}