Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology (PhD)

Department

Clinical Psychology

First Advisor/Committee Member

Keyne C. Law

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Thane Erickson

Third Advisor/Committee Member

Michael Dolezal

Abstract

Emergency telecommunicators are critical as first responders and often experience great reward and distressing consequences of their work. This study investigates the suicide risk among these first responders, drawing on the Eusocial Theory of Suicide, which suggests that individuals may engage in altruistic self-sacrifice after weighing benefits, costs, and relatedness using a mathematical model, Hamilton’s Rule. Proxy variables were used: perceived social support and perceived work cohesion for relatedness, compassion satisfaction for benefit, and compassion fatigue for cost. The study was a non-experimental, cross-sectional self-report survey of predominantly White cisgender heterosexual female emergency telecommunicators (N = 346) in Washington, California, and Oregon. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including two hierarchical linear regressions, explored the relationships between the proxy variables and suicide risk and tested the theory. Nearly 20% of participants were at risk of suicide, with half of the participants (n =173) endorsing a lifetime history of suicidal ideation, plans, or attempts. The first hierarchical linear regression identified that factors of low cost and high relatedness were associated with increased suicide risk. A three-way interaction of benefit, cost, and relatedness found that higher relatedness is only associated with decreased suicide risk when accompanied by a unique combination of average to high cost and low to average benefit levels. A second hierarchical linear regression tested a singular variable representing Hamilton’s Rule mathematical model and found that as the Hamilton’s Rule variable increases, suicide risk decreases at a steeper slope and transitions to a more conservative slope in a curvilinear relationship. Altruistic purpose was not significant in both regressions. This study found a complex relationship between relatedness, compassion satisfaction, and compassion fatigue, suggesting that a unique combination of relatedness and positive and negative aspects could be part of a life-death cost-benefit analysis associated with suicide risk.

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