ArticlePloS one2026
Linguistic markers of emotional reactivity and their association with anxiety, depression, and stress among emergency call takers and dispatchers.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emergency call takers and dispatchers (ECDs) are routinely exposed to emotionally intense and highly stressful events, placing them at elevated risk for mental health challenges. Despite their critical role in emergency response, ECDs remain underrepresented in occupational mental health research, and it is unclear why some adapt more effectively than others under chronic stress. Cognitive appraisal theory suggests that differences in emotional reactivity-how individuals evaluate stimuli in terms of arousal and valence-may contribute to this variation. To test this, a sample of ECDs provided open-ended narratives of a stressful work-related event and completed the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Narratives were analyzed using natural language processing to quantify emotional reactivity through the usage of high and low arousal language, and positively and negatively valenced language. Analyses revealed that greater use of negatively valenced language significantly predicted higher depression and anxiety, whereas positively valenced and arousal language did not. Stress symptoms were not significantly predicted by any linguistic markers of emotional reactivity. Follow-up analyses showed that individuals with moderate or higher depression and anxiety used significantly more negatively valenced language than those below threshold. These findings suggest that negatively valenced language serves as a robust marker of psychological distress among ECDs, even when narratives are elicited in contexts that naturally evoke negative emotion. Results highlight the potential of language-based tools for early, unobtrusive detection of distress, offering scalable approaches to promote resilience and support well-being in this critical workforce.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.