A series of studies have been undertaken into the health and stress of ambulance personnel and their partners in Victoria, Australia. Studies occurred in 1984, 1993 and 2002.

These studies were conducted independently from, but in close association with, both Management and Union bodies and as described in the various reports.

The studies were preceded by two years of field work, within Ambulance Services, by the principle researcher. This enabled the development of ambulance specific measuring instruments. These were used together with standardised tests. Tests were piloted prior to the first main study.

Assessment was mainly through questionnaire. Though there were some changes to the questionnaire over time, deleting items with low reliability or validity and adding items which reflected new areas of interest, the questionnaire was kept as stable as possible in order to enable comparisons on health and stress measures over time.

Completion of questionnaires was confidential, however participants had the option of leaving an ID code on their questionnaire (which the majority did) enabling the matching of questionnaires over time and consequently the calculation of predictive statistics.

Reports on the studies have been made available to the Ambulance Services. There have also been numerous field and conference presentations on the findings over time, in Australia and overseas.

This, however, is the first public release of these documents which will be made through the CISMFA web site and also the web sites of Ambulance Services in Victoria.

This information may be used, with appropriate citation and acknowledgement, for the purposes of learning and furthering the well being of ambulance staff and their families. It may not be used for any commercial purposes. Permission must be sought from the author of the studies for utilitisation of the questionnaire or sections of it.