New Brunswick paramedics will be some of the first provincial frontline emergency personnel that take part in a mental health monitoring study meant to intervene before the medic’s mental health seriously deteriorates. The study is out of the University of Regina, sparked by a request in 2017 by the RCMP to come up with a solution-based approach to keeping their members as mentally well as possible. A team of psychologists, researchers, and clinicians came up with a mental health monitoring system that asks trauma-exposed personnel to do a quick daily check-in, a more in-depth monthly check-in and an annual assessment. The study’s lead and clinical psychologist Dr. Nick Carleton says it’s like an early warning system. “So, the system provides regular feedback on an annual and a monthly basis that they can then export and take to a clinician of their own choosing, or to another resource of their own choosing and say, ‘Look, here’s where I’m starting to get into trouble,’” he said in an interview with CTV Atlantic. He says the daily check-ins can be as important as the annual assessments, because research shows taking a minute to stop and reflect on your day is good for anyone’s mental health. “Recent evidence that we’ve got already suggests that that is true for RCMP. It appears to also be true for other public safety personnel. And so, this is part of the system that we’re now deploying thanks to WorkSafeNB and tremendous teams like the Paramedic’s Association,” he said. Chris Hood, executive director of the Paramedic Association of N.B., says about ten per cent of paramedics in N.B. are on a medical stress leave at any given time. He says about 100 paramedics will take part in the initial study, over the course of at least three years. WorkSafeNB will fund medics’ participation for the first two years, and the association will fund the third year – but he hopes further funding will be made available so it can become a permanent resource, and allow more medics to participate. “It’s a tough job in many ways. It’s a tough job to think about, you know, horrific events, horrific events that leave a mark on you,” Hood said. “But, you know, it’s not even as much about that as it is all of the stresses of the profession, combine that with the stresses of the health-care system, combine that with your family stresses, combine it with all of the other aspects of daily living.” WorksafeNB’s CEO Tim Peterson said in a statement says the aim is to intervene as soon as possible, and more often. “By investing in technology, like the Mental Health Monitoring Safeguard System, we’re helping ensure support is available early and before small struggles become serious injuries,” he said. One of the important aspects of this study, says Hood, is when they do their check-ins, that data will only be stored at the University of Regina. Employers, insurers and managers will never get access to it. But the program can wipe the personal information and provide employers with data that can give them an indication of their team’s health overall, says Carleton. “So that the leaders who are responsible for protecting the mental health of the frontline can now hear on a daily basis directly from the frontline, on a daily basis, a monthly basis and annual basis, we can now actually engage with that and watch it change, waxing and waning in real time so that the frontline can essentially anonymously speak to all of the different leaders in real time,” he said. RCMP are well into their part of the study. Members began documenting their mental wellbeing when they first entered training, through to graduation, their first deployment and will continue participating for about five-and-a-half years total. The study itself will take ten years, following the mental health of about 980 members. Carleton says frontline workers deserve to feel supported. “The best data that we’ve got suggests that up to one in 10 of them (paramedics) will try to die by suicide at least once in their lifetime. We owe them so much better than that,” he said. “And the other public safety factors are having similar kinds of challenges, people who are protecting and serving all of us. So, my ideal goal would be that these kinds of evidence-based tools and training and practices and policy shift can be propagated across everybody who’s choosing to serve like this, because we owe them at least that and so much more.” For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
