Project reach out: A Training Program to Increase Behavioral Health Utilization among Professional Firefighters

The current study examined the efficacy of a newly developed training program to help firefighters identify fellow firefighters in distress and connect them with behavioral health care. This training program-known as Reach Out-incorporates elements of Motivational Interviewing and Community Reinforcement along with basic education about common behavioral health problems. Two active versions of the Reach Out training program (group format vs. video format) were compared with a behavioral health video control condition. One hundred seventy-two firefighters were randomized to 1 of the 3 training conditions. Dependent measures included successful attempts to connect identified firefighters with treatment, intervention effectiveness, and treatment credibility. Firefighters in the video-based Reach Out training condition reported a significant increase in successful interventions and intervention effectiveness from pretest to the 3-month follow-up compared with the control group. The video-based Reach Out training condition was also rated as significantly more credible than the control condition. Although preliminary, these findings suggest that the video-based Reach Out training program may help to increase behavioral health utilization among firefighters. Additional research on this promising new training program is warranted.

Duke Scholars

Author Nathan Andrew Kimbrel Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Behavioral Medicine & Neur ...