Does past military experience impact fear reactivity in active-duty firefighters? Well, it is complicated

A significant proportion of military veterans successfully transition out of the military into civilian careers as first responders, such as firefighters. Like military service, being a firefighter is a high-risk profession involving exposure to aversive environments. Thus, it is possible that military experience might serve to buffer or exacerbate risk for negative psychological outcomes in firefighters. However, both occupations are associated with increased risk for psychopathology, such as PTSD, and little research has examined the effect of military service on processes that underlie stress in veterans serving as active-duty firefighters. The current study explores whether military service confers an adaptive advantage or an additional risk.

Using a case-control design, we examined differences in fear reactivity through electrodermal activity (EDA) and recording of fearful facial expressions, between 32 firefighters with and 32 firefighters without military veteran status (MVS; all men). Participants completed a semistructured, emotionally evocative interview with multiple contexts eliciting varying levels of emotion.

MVS firefighters had relatively elevated EDA across contexts. However, lower baseline levels indicated calmer resting state in MVS firefighters. There was greater incidence of lifetime PTSD in MVS compared with non-MVS firefighters (40.6% vs. 15.6%). Overall, firefighters with past PTSD had less EDA reactivity. Finally, number of military deployments was associated with higher fear expressions throughout the interview.

These findings highlight the need to consider interactions between military experience and psychiatric history in future investigations examining risk and resilience in first responders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).