Disaster stress: an emergency management perspective

This paper examines the sources of stress likely to be encountered by emergency managers when responding to a disaster. Stressors relating to environmental (e.g. time pressure, level of risk, heat), organisational (e.g. bureaucracy, appropriateness of information, decision support and management systems) and operational (e.g. incident command, decision making, interagency liaison, team and media management) demands are considered. The mediating role of personality and transient states of physical (e.g. fitness and fatigue) and psychological (e.g. high levels of occupational stress) states are reviewed in terms of their influence on stress, judgement and decision making. Strategies for identifying which of these potential stress factors can be controlled or reduced and for training emergency managers to deal with the others are discussed.