The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothetical model designed to explain the post-traumatic stress and burnout in firefighters. Six exogenous variables such as career, control, impact mobilization frequency, life event, work burden, social support, and four endogenous variables, eg., mobilization impact, coping, post-traumatic stress, burnout were considered for the study.
The target population for the distribution of the questionnaire was 428 firefighters in Daejeon, Chungnam Province, Seoul and Kyonggi Province. The data was collected about five weeks, July 12-August 25, 1999. The survey instrument was 8 control items by Seo (1995), 10 life event items by Brugha and Cragg (1990), 20 work burden items by Choi (2000), 12 social support items by Park (1985), post-traumatic stress of 17 items by Foa et al. (1998) and 45 items by Kang (1997). The reliability of the survey instrument and the cronbach’s alpha was .62 - .93 level.
SAS PC Program and LISREL 8.12a program were used for descriptive statistics and linear structural relationship (LISREL) modeling. Based on the data collected, the following results were obtained.
1. The overall fit of the hypothetical model to the data was good (χ2=54.65 [df=17, p=0.000007], RMSEA=0.07, standardized RMR=0.03, GFI=0.98, AGFI=0.91, NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.75).
2. After considering statistical significance and theoretical meaningfulness of paths of the model, a modified model was sought. Compared to the hypothetical model, the modified model has become parsimonious and had a better fit to the data (χ2=55.90 [df=20, p=0.0003], RMSEA=0.06, standardized RMR=0.03, GFI=0.98, AGFI=0.93, NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.80).
3. The results of statistical testing of hypotheses were as follows;
(1) Work burden, career had a significantly direct effect on mobilization impact. These variables explained 9% of the total variance of mobilization impact.
(2) Control, social support, work burden, mobilization impact had a significantly direct effect on coping. These variables explained 15% of the total variance of coping.
(3) Control, work burden, social support, coping had a significantly direct effect on post-traumatic stress. These variables explained 49% of the total variance of post-traumatic stress.
(4) Coping, post-traumatic stress had a significantly direct effect on burnout. These variables explained 60% of the total variance of burnout.
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