Workplace belongingness, distress, and resilience in emergency service workers.

OBJECTIVE: Ambulance personnel provide emergency medical services to the community, often attending to highly challenging and traumatic scenes in complex and chaotic circumstances. Currently, the assessment of predictors of psychological well-being remains limited. The current study investigated whether workplace belongingness was significant in predicting psychological distress as well as the presence of resilience in ambulance personnel while controlling for more routinely examined factors. METHOD: Australian ambulance officers (N = 740) completed a survey battery including the Kessler 10, Brief Resilience Scale, and Psychological Sense of Organizational Membership scale. RESULTS: Controlling for more commonly examined factors such as severity of trauma exposure and length of service, hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that workplace belongingness was significantly associated with reduced distress levels and enhanced resilience levels. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that strategies to enhance a sense of workplace belongingness in emergency service organizations could promote the well-being of emergency workers despite routine exposure to potentially traumatic events. (PsycINFO Database Record

Selective suppression of cathepsin L by antisense cDNA impairs human brain tumor cell invasion in vitro and promotes apoptosis.

Invasion and metastasis of certain tumors are accompanied by increased mRNA protein levels and enzymatic activity of cathepsin L. Cathepsin L has also been suggested to play a role in the proteolytic cascades associated with apoptosis. To investigate the role of cathepsin L in brain tumor invasion and apoptosis, the human glioma cell line, IPTP, was stably transfected with full-length antisense and sense cDNA of cathepsin L. Down-regulation of cathepsin L by antisense cDNA significantly impaired (up to 70%) glioma cell invasion in vitro and markedly increased glioma cell apoptosis induced by staurosporine. Compared to control and parental cell lines, antisense down-regulation of cathepsin L was associated with an earlier induction of caspase-3 activity. Up-regulation of cathepsin L activity by sense cDNA was associated with reduced apoptosis and later induction of caspase-3 activity. Moreover, down-regulation of cathepsin L lowered the expression of antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2, whereas up-regulation increased the expression of Bcl-2, indicating that cathepsin L acts upstream of caspase-3. These data show that cathepsin L is an important protein mediating the malignancy of gliomas and its inhibition may diminish their invasion and lead to increased tumor cell apoptosis by reducing apoptotic threshold.