What is it to be sturdy (robust) - can it be trained?

Baggrund / Background:There is a higher incidence of morbidity and of psychological symptoms – ie. PTSD and depression - in military and in emergency/rescue professional business compared to the Danish adult population (1). It is a demand from military and from emergency/rescue professional business that their personnel must be "sturdy/robust". Studies of a synonymous term: "Hardiness" have shown, that a high score on this scale can be related to a lower incidence of psychiatric symptoms among deployed in stressful environments (2). A similar scale: SOC (Sense of Coherence) has also proved suitable to assess people's resilience to stressors (3).

Formål/Purpose: This paper intends to give a first insight into the concept of being "sturdy/robust";
To develop and test a Danish model of how to measure sturdiness/robustness;
To test the scale's ability to identify people in emergency situations who have high risk of developing psychological illness.


Metoder / Methods: The concept of being sturdy will be discussed with stakeholders in the aim to develop important factors of what it means to be “sturdy/robust”.
This will be used as input for a Danish screening tool.
The Scale will be tested among employees from disaster related professions.
Scores will be compared with development of symptoms and different types of illnesses, in order to identify scores, that can be used as limits for deselecting persons that are likely to develop diseases and symptoms

Expected Results:
A robustness/sturdy questionnaire
A scale that can be used to prevent that vulnerable persons are being ordered to tasks that exceed their capacity
An possible age/gender specific scale

Diskussion/discussion: Can the questionnaire show long-term effects from stressful workloads and from violent experiences?
Can the questionnaire be used to point out/prevent vulnerable employees from stressful exposure?
Is it possible to learn how to become sturdy/robust?