“They’re the Ones that Get it”: Stress and Similar Other Support among Emergency Medical Service Providers

Emergency medical services (EMS) is an inherently high-stress occupation characterized by frequent exposure to traumatic events, unpredictable workloads, and organizational challenges. These stressors have negative implications for health, job satisfaction, and job performance. Social support is widely recognized as a buffer against occupational stress, yet little is known about the mechanisms that make certain sources of support more effective for EMS providers specifically. This study explores the stressors most salient to EMS personnel and examines their preferred sources of social support and the reasons for these preferences. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 EMS providers, examining the stressors they experience most and the social support they prefer most. Thematic analysis identified the importance of experiential similarity in social support, aligning with Thoits’ “similar others” theory. This study extends the applicability of the similar others theory to high-stress health care contexts, potentially informing organizational policy regarding effective stress management. Implications for future theoretical applications are also identified, including the variations in the similar-significant others typology and the inclusion of other social statuses (age, gender, sexuality, race, etc.) for more nuanced analyses of myriad social determinants of preferred social support within the similar others’ framework.