Hilft Humor? Eine Studie zum Einsatz von Humor bei Ärzten und in Rettungsberufen

Humor has been shown to have protective effects against the increased risk of posttraumatic stress symptomatology in emergency professionals. However, the acceptance of humor in the context of emergency medicine is controversial. The aim of this study is to investigate how often and in what context humor is used by emergency workers and physicians, and what subjective helpfulness is attributed to it.

A survey was conducted in Germany with n = 160 physicians and n = 100 employees from rescue professions. The survey assessed subjective emotional stress and secondary traumatization using PTSS-10. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered to evaluate the use and subjective meaning of humor.

The majority of participants found humor to be helpful and attributed high importance to it. Notably, it was found that “black humor” was widely accepted, and together with coping humor, it was significantly more preferred than telling jokes. Making “Jokes” about children and the deceased were considered inappropriate. Approximately 80% of the sample agrees that there is a unique sense of humor shared only among medical professionals. More than 25% of the sample exhibits secondary traumatization, which correlates with occupational and private stress as well as acceptance of black humor.

In emergency professions, humor is often considered to be resilience-strengthening, including black humor. Guidelines for dealing with humor in supervision and training contexts are limited. The potential effects of humor include a reduction in assignment anxiety and an improvement in group cohesion. Despite this, the topic of humor in rescue professions has received little attention in medical ethics.