Post-traumatic Stress and Coping Factors Among Search and Recovery Divers

Background: Irish search and recovery divers dive on a voluntary basis to recover missing persons. During these procedures, they encounter situations not typically part of ordinary human experience and might be expected to experience psychological effects as a result.

Aims: To investigate the association of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms with previous experience of missing person recovery among divers, and to investigate the coping mechanisms used.

Methods: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to all 206 active search divers in Ireland. A validated questionnaire, the Impact of Event Scale revised (IES-R), was used together with a coping questionnaire to compare the level of symptoms in divers with and without recovery experience, and to describe the main coping factors.

Results: One hundred and fifty-five questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 75%. Divers with prior missing person recovery experience scored lower on all three PTSD dimensions (avoidance, intrusion and hyper-arousal) with a significant difference for intrusion (P < 0.001). Coping mechanisms listed by the divers were search and recovery training, support from peers and search unit and sense of duty.

Conclusions: The results do not support the hypothesis of an accumulation of traumatic experience in experienced divers but may indicate a survivor bias of the most resilient individuals, or a wearing off of vulnerability to traumatic events with experience.