Experience moderates relationship between cortisol activity and negative affect in firefighters performing dual-stress activity

Download files
Access & Terms of Use
open access
Copyright: Campbell, Deena
Altmetric
Abstract
Firefighters have an elevated risk of on-duty death from heart disease related events. It has been suggested that the combined physiological and psychological stressors of firefighting elicits a greater cortisol response. Although there is generally a positive relationship between cortisol release and negative affect, several studies have found there to be either no relationship, or a negative relationship. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether experience moderates the relationship between cortisol activity and negative affect. METHODS: Twelve professional firefighters attended 3 sessions. Session 1 comprised familiarization, collection of demographic data, signing of informed consent, and fitness assessment. In sessions 2 and 3, firefighters exercised at 60% V02max for duration of 37 minutes on a cycle ergometer (exercise alone condition), or participated in a set of computerized tasks designed to simulate a fire scene whilst engaged in the same exercise (dual stress condition). The fire scene simulation began 12 minutes after the commencement of exercise, and lasted 20 minutes. Cortisol was measured through blood samples taken at 5 time points throughout the 37 minutes. Negative affect was measured using a shortened version of the State Anxiety Inventory. Multilevel modeling was used to analyse data. RESULTS: Results suggest that the relationship between cortisol and negative affect is moderated by length of professional experience. Firefighters with greater experience displayed a positive relationship between cortisol and negative affect, while less experienced firefighters showed a negative relationship. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that the link between cortisol activity and negative affect moderated by experience. This study has important consequences for the evaluation of firefighters' heart disease risk profiles.
Persistent link to this record
Link to Publisher Version
Link to Open Access Version
Additional Link
Author(s)
Campbell, Deena
Supervisor(s)
Creator(s)
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Curator(s)
Designer(s)
Arranger(s)
Composer(s)
Recordist(s)
Conference Proceedings Editor(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Corporate/Industry Contributor(s)
Publication Year
2009
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
UNSW Faculty
Files
download Campbell-014953811.pdf 1.91 MB Adobe Portable Document Format
Related dataset(s)