Surf lifesavers and lifeguards often face unintended high-risk, traumatic situations, with potential impacts on mental wellbeing, yet research into mental health within surf lifesavers and lifeguards remains limited. This study explores exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and measures post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), generalised self-efficacy levels (GSE), and perceived social support (SS).
An online, anonymous survey of 471 patrolling adult SLS members, aged 18+ years were recruited via internal communications and social media groups. Social support was negatively correlated with global trauma, direct trauma and trauma experienced outside of SLS contexts. Self-efficacy and traumatic experiences emerged as significant, with positive correlations between self-efficacy and direct trauma, as well as self-efficacy and trauma encountered within SLS.
PTSS severity decreased with age, and member years. Member age was positively correlated with direct trauma, meaning members are more likely to experience trauma directly as they grow older, but it was less stressful. Similarly, years spent as member and patrolling were positively correlated with all four trauma domains. This suggests that longer involvement in the surf lifesaving community is linked to an increased likelihood of exposure to PTEs generally, but also within SLS roles.
This study is the first in Australia to robustly explore mental health of adult surf lifesavers and lifeguards. These results suggest complex interactions between traumatic experiences, e, GSE and SS?? and PTSS severity. Perceived social support decreased with global, direct, and outside of SLS trauma exposure, while self-efficacy increased when trauma was experienced directly or within SLS contexts. This may suggest that while trauma exposure generally increases during life, support provided from the SLS context could reframe these experiences to support the development of effective strategies to cope with stressful situations.