Role Identity, Dissonance, and Distress among Paramedics

Justin Mausz, Elizabeth Anne Donnelly, Sandra Moll, Sheila Harms and Meghan McConnell
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Justin Mausz: Peel Regional Paramedic Services, Brampton, ON L6V 4R5, Canada
Elizabeth Anne Donnelly: School of Social Work, The University of Windsor, Windsor, ON N9A 0C5, Canada
Sandra Moll: School of Rehabilitation Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 1C7, Canada
Sheila Harms: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8N 3K7, Canada
Meghan McConnell: Department of Innovation in Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1G 5Z3, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Role identity theory describes the purpose and meaning in life that comes, in part, from occupying social roles. While robustly linked to health and wellbeing, this may become unideal when an individual is unable to fulfill the perceived requirements of an especially salient role in the manner that they believe they should. Amid high rates of mental illness among public safety personnel, we interviewed a purposely selected sample of 21 paramedics from a single service in Ontario, Canada, to explore incongruence between an espoused and able-to-enact paramedic role identity. Situated in an interpretivist epistemology and using successive rounds of thematic analysis, we developed a framework for role identity dissonance wherein chronic, identity-relevant disruptive events cause emotional and psychological distress. While some participants were able to recalibrate their sense of self and understanding of the role, for others, this dissonance was irreconcilable, contributing to disability and lost time from work. In addition to contributing a novel perspective on paramedic mental health and wellbeing, our work also offers a modest contribution to the theory in using the paramedic context as an example to consider identity disruption through chronic workplace stress.

Keywords: public safety personnel; first responders; mental disorders; mental health; wellbeing; trauma; operational stress injuries; post-traumatic stress injuries; role identity theory; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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