A $60,000 grant from the Repat Foundation will help Flinders researchers discover how better to help families living with those experiencing post-traumatic stress.
‘The Repat Foundation – The Road Home’ research grants were established to promote and improve health and wellbeing for veterans, emergency services personnel and their families across Australia.
Professor Sharon Lawn, from Flinders’ Human Behaviour & Health Research Unit, was awarded the Prabha Seshadri Grant for $60,000, for her project: Living vicariously with PTSD: how partners experience and can better support those who are exposed to traumatic events in the course of their work.
Her Flinders research team will investigate what helps or hinders a partner’s ability to provide support to a contemporary war veteran or to Emergency Service First Responders (ESFRs) such as paramedics, firefighters and police officers.
“We want to determine what is needed to maintain the mental health of those supporting family members experiencing post-traumatic stress at home, identify what resources and programs are helpful and what more is required. We then want to develop new programs and strengthen current ones that work for both the individual and their significant others,” she says.
“In our community, there are those whose job it is to keep the rest of us safe, to protect us from harm, and to help us when we need it most. They are contemporary veterans and ESFRs.
“These people, and their families, live in our communities alongside us, and we expect them to be brave, strong and resilient. Contemporary veterans and ESFRs go to work each day but, unlike most of us, their jobs involve routinely dealing with traumatic events and people in crisis.
“Accordingly, while at the end of a tour or working day they might go home like the rest of us, they are also more likely to experience psychological distress given the traumas they witness, call upon the support of their family to deal with this trauma, or experience relationship pressure as a spouse or partner deals vicariously with post-traumatic stress.”
Professor Lawn says the research team will interview family members of contemporary veterans and ESFRs to discuss their experience of living with someone affected by post-traumatic stress.
“There is little known about how spouses and partners experience daily life while supporting loved ones who are affected by work-related trauma,” she says.
“Our research involves interviews with spouses/partners to understand what helps or hinders their ability to provide support and maintain their own mental health. We want to know what resources and programs are helpful, and what more is needed. This is important because those who experience post-traumatic stress may find it hard to seek help from others, leaving their families to bear the load alone.”
The proposed research involves semi-structured face-to-face interviews conducted from July-October 2017.
See more: https://www.theroadhome.com.au/who-we-are/our-organisation/#sthash.PXB8RJs7.dpuf