Pre-traumatic Factors of Career-Related PTSD: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This paper examined and synthesized the (limited) available literature on the pre-traumatic predictors of PTSD, specifically targeting populations in which traumatic events are experienced frequently because of the requirements of their positions, i.e., firefighters, police, and military personnel. A total of 21 articles were included in the final literature review and were used to assess the current available knowledge of the pre-traumatic traits of career-related PTSD, and address potential gaps in the literature. The culmination of this research was used to create specific risk profiles for each of the high risk careers included in this review, firefighters, police, and military personnel. The research presented here discovered very little literature surrounding these high risk populations. Future research focusing on longitudinal prospective studies should be conducted on high risk populations so that training could better equip officers, firefighters, and military personnel to deal with PTEs, thus lowering the overall development of PTSD