The role of personal traits in shaping resilience and safety culture in emergency medical services

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für angewandte Organisationspsychologie (2025) 56:417–429 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11612-025-00821-4 HAUPTBEITRAG THEMENTEIL The role of personal traits in shaping resilience and safety culture in emergency medical services Beatrice Thielmann1 · Malwine Ifferth1 · Irina Böckelmann1 Accepted: 30 June 2025 / Published online: 29 July 2025 © The Author(s) 2025 Abstract This article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO) ex amines the relationship between personality traits and resilience in emergency medical services. Emergency service personnel are regularly exposed to high levels of psychological stress in their day-to-day work. In this context, psychological resilience is crucial for coping with stress and challenging situations. Resilience, as part of safety culture, promotes not only the well-being of the individual but also the performance and stability of the entire team. Data collected from 301 emergency service personnel using the Resilience Scale (RS-13) and the Freiburg Personality Inventory (FPI-R) were analyzed. Only study participants (n = 286) who completed both questionnaires were included. They were divided into three groups on the basis of the RS-13: low (38.8%), moderate (20.3%) and high (40.9%) resilience. Significant group differences were found in almost all FPI dimensions (except in social orientation, aggressiveness, and health concern). The highly resilient group presented significantly lower values for life satisfaction and achievement orientation and higher values for emotionality. There was a strong positive correlation between emotional instability (FPI emotionality) and resilience. Further moderate positive correlations were found ininhibitedness, somatic complaints, and strain. Age and gender showed weak correlations at most. The results reveal distinct associations between specific personality traits and resilience levels. These findings encourage further in-depth research into the role of individual characteristics in the context of psychological stress and organisational safety culture. Keywords Emotionality · Prevention · Working conditions · Mental stress · Team cohesion · Health promotion 1 Introduction Emergency medical services (EMS) work is characterized by intensive interaction, which takes place both within the organization and in direct contact with patients, their relatives and other stakeholders in the health care system (Lawn et al. 2020; Schönemann-Gieck et al. 2023). These workplaces involve not only professional but also considerable emotional demands due to the constant confrontation with emergencies and responsibility for the lives of patients, and the work is carried out under particularly challenging conditions, which have a significant impact on the working  Dr. med. Beatrice Thielmann 1 Institute of Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Leipziger Str. 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany environment (Näsström et al. 2023) and the mental, physical and social well-being of emergency medical services personnel (EMSP) (Lawn et al. 2020). A strong safety culture in addition to adequate risk awareness is crucial in EMS to ensure the safety of employees and patients (Policy statements 2021). It encompasses the shared values, norms, beliefs and behaviors of an organization that shape the safety awareness and behavior of staff and influence the implementation of safety measures (Pfaff et al. 2009). A well-developed safety culture can help reduce stress and promote well-being and thus reduce the risk of stress consequences such as burnout (Roth et al. 2020). Meeting the diverse challenges of the modern working world in EMS requires not only organizational and technical approaches but also targeted measures to strengthen the mental and physical resilience of EMSP. Resilience plays a key role in this context. In particular, in the permanent VUCA or BANI world, resilience is an essential factor for EMSP health, performance and safety. VUCA describes a world K 418 characterized by volatility (rapid change), uncertainty (unpredictable developments), complexity (multilayered relationships) and ambiguity (in interpretation) (Adam 2020; Meyer 2021). BANI complements this by describing a modern reality that appears fragile (brittle), anxious (anxious), nonlinear (nonlinear) and incomprehensible (incomprehensible), which points to the fragility and unpredictability of today’s systems (Tshetshe 2025). 1.1 Resilience is a decisive factor for individual and collective health and safety culture in companies Coping with the emotional and social challenges of interactive work in EMS requires specific psychological skills and characteristics. Resilience helps people manage their own and others’ emotions in a targeted manner and cope effectively with stressful situations. It is defined as the ability to overcome challenges and emerge stronger (Reichhart and Pusch 2023). Resilience is not just a personal strength but a crucial component of a functioning safety culture. It protects the health of the individual, improves teamwork, and increases patient safety and the ability of an organization to manage stressful and unpredictable situations successfully (Soucek et al. 2016; Arnal-Velasco and Heras-Hernando 2023). It is therefore essential to both promote resilience individually and integrate it systematically into safety culture. According to Antonovsky, central to promoting resilience is the concept of a sense of coherence (SoC), which is closely linked to his theory of salutogenesis (Antonovsky 1987). This theory focuses on the question of what factors promote and maintain health even under stressful conditions. An SoC describes a basic attitude that enables people to perceive challenges as understandable, manageable and meaningful. These three dimensions are essential for strengthening resilience and promoting mental health. The ability to rationally grasp and categorize events and challenges in daily working life forms the basis for rescue workers to be able to act in a clear and focused manner, even in dynamic and unpredictable situations. The conviction that the necessary resources—both internal and external—are available makes it easier to cope with difficult situations. Training, supervision and a supportive working environment are key to strengthening this dimension. The perception of one’s own work as meaningful is a key factor for mental resilience and long-term health. A working environment that values the performance of each individual and emphasizes the importance of his or her own contribution to patient safety and the success of the organization strengthens this feeling. In addition to psychosocial factors, environmental, genetic, epigenetic and neural mechanisms are increasingly K B. Thielmann et al. becoming the focus of resilience research (Feder et al. 2009). Studies suggest that certain genetic dispositio (...truncated)