Post-traumatic stress and coping factors among search and recovery divers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.