Personality and resilience associated with perceived fatigue of local government employees responding to disasters.

OBJECTIVES: According to some newspapers, concerns are growing over the health of local government employees in the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster areas. Concerns were consistently present after the Hanshin-Awaji and Niigata-Chuetsu earthquakes but not studied analytically. METHODS: Municipal employees responding to the disasters after an earthquake and floods answered a questionnaire about the degrees of workload, fatigue, psychological distress, resilience and personality traits. RESULTS: Two-thirds of the employees suffered fatigue and psychological distress, which were significantly correlated with workload but inversely correlated with emotional stability personality traits and psychological resilience. CONCLUSIONS: Together with substantial workload, individual differences in emotional stability and to lesser degree in resilience were found to have an impact on perceived fatigue. These individual factors should be considered as potential mediators of distresses among local government employees responding to disasters.