By Nicola Davies
The critical contribution of occupational psychology to firefighting
In their line of work, firefighters go into emergency situations of varying traumatic proportions. On different occasions, they may need to enter a burning building, put out a huge forest fire, or rescue victims from a major traffic accident. Besides being first responders to emergency situations, firefighters are also experiencing increasingly more routine job demands. To provide 24 hours of service, for example, firefighters need to work irregular shifts that disrupt their sleeping patterns. Furthermore, with the current growing clamor for accountability, fire service leaders have to operate with the fear that they could become exposed to civil or criminal liability in connection with their vital work.
Firefighters are being pushed to do more psychologically and physically exhausting work with less resources to get these tasks done. “Saving a greater number of lives and properties with less resources and staff, and with constantly changing obstacles is a fierce challenge,” reports Thomas Rhys Evans, a PhD student and lecturer in occupational psychology at Coventry University, United Kingdom. The increasing demands on fire personnel can easily lead to feelings of frustration, stress, and burnout, so how can firefighters possibly keep up with these ever-increasing demands?
THE FIELD OF OCCUPATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
In efforts to better understand the psychological health of firefighters, fire agency managers can benefit from the help of occupational psychologists, experts concerned with understanding and adapting the behavior of employees to produce their best performance while at the same time maintaining job satisfaction. These experts can provide evidence-based insights into recruitment and training, retention, well-being, and the general psychological health of employees to increase the effectiveness of individuals and organizations.
In the firefighting industry, occupational psychologists have helped departments design psychometric assessment tests and post-traumatic stress interventions. This past January, during the British Psychological Society’s 2016 Division of Occupational Psychology (DOP) Conference, held in Nottingham, United Kingdom, researchers delivered a three-part symposium on, “The Contribution of Occupational Psychology to the Blue Light Services.” During this symposium, it was highlighted that the real value of occupational psychology comes from the fact that the discipline involves the application of psychological theories to issues in the workplace. According to Ivan Robertson, professor of organizational psychology at Leeds University Business School, “Occupational psychology provides an unbeatable combination of relevance and the challenge to make a practical, evidence-based contribution.”
The field is an overlap between psychological science and business practice. As such, Catherine Cassell, professor of occupational psychology at Manchester Business School, suggests that occupational psychologists are best positioned to work alongside senior management and colleagues in human resources while retaining their disciplinary base and upholding their values regarding employee psychological health. This overlap between psychological science and business practice enhances the “understanding of the complexities of organizational life within which psychological interventions take place,” she says.
CONVINCING DECISION MAKERS IN THE FIREFIGHTING INDUSTRY
Occupational psychology shares and contributes theories with the larger discipline of psychology, but it clearly has specific implications and makes significant impacts on the working lives of people. The increasing job demands of firefighters only means there are more opportunities for occupational psychologists. However, senior management in some departments still places psychological interventions at the bottom of the priority list. Some also hold the belief that psychological stress is something that firefighters should be able to shake off.
With many organizations experiencing budget cuts and the demand to “do more with less,” it is sometimes more practical for management to avail of the services of occupational psychologists on a contract basis. According to Fiona Patterson, professor of psychology at the City University, London, “Given the scale of many occupational psychology interventions, clients often view solutions as too expensive or even unnecessary to address a problem.” However, this poses problems in terms of continuity of long-term results.
Many organizations also think that occupational psychology may be too academic and too far removed from the reality of practice. Consequently, they make the mistake of choosing the services of occupational therapists and management consultants instead. This, however, runs the risk of designing interventions that are based on popularist science that doesn’t target the heart of workplace issues. As business psychologist Binna Kandola says, “To reject [the field] as too academic is to dismiss the one thing that gives the discipline legitimacy in the first place.”
HARNESSING THE POWER OF OCCUPATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
There is no doubt that the fire and rescue industry stands to gain from making use of insights from occupational psychology. Experts in the field can help analyze firefighting job roles, contribute to policy design, develop interventions that inform the public, and provide resources that educate senior management. They have a particularly critical part to play in convincing government agencies and funders to allocate more resources toward firefighter psychology research and evidence-based psychological interventions.
“The impact of public behavior to the psychology of firefighters appears a promising avenue for further research,” says Evans. One of the many risks and uncertainties that fire personnel must manage is how victims respond to and behave during an emergency situation. Evans’ study looked into how the diversity of responses from fire victims contributed to the pressure experienced by firefighters to achieve an unrealistic response time.
Evans’ team is now continuing their work toward understanding the issues that confront firefighters in undertaking their daily duties. For example, they are partnering with Lessons in Fire Evacuation Behavior in Dwellings (LIFEBID) to achieve a wider collection of more representative data on varying public responses to fire. The data will be used to analyze how to minimize associated risks. “With a better understanding of this diversity [in public response], we expect a significant amount of change in the practices and values of the Fire Service toward the improvement of public and staff safety,” Burns says.
This particular study demonstrates that fire departments need knowledge and evidence-based solutions to ensure long-term organizational outcomes while at the same time considering what’s best for both the employee and the public. Additionally, it underscores that there are many areas in firefighting that occupational psychologists have yet to explore. Emergency situations can cost the lives of victims and fire personnel, and so Antonia Dietmann, who is the chair of the DOP and a chartered psychologist at the Ministry of Defense, implores organizational heads and government bodies to become more discerning of the quality of psychological interventions-or the lack thereof.
RESEARCH IN ITS INFANCY
With the increasing job pressure demands and mounting pressure experienced by staff in the fire and rescue service, occupational psychologists are looking into addressing the unmet psychological needs of firefighters. More accurate assessment tools are being developed to explore the resilience, operational preparedness, and general “fitness” for duty of firefighters. Greater knowledge and increasingly sophisticated insights are also being gathered as a basis to inform interventions to improve the health and well-being of these critical emergency service personnel.
However, there is much more work to be done if there is to be a broader understanding of the realities that underpin fire service work today. The firefighting service has a huge amount to gain from occupational psychology but, according to Dietmann, experts must first convince policymakers, decision makers, and funders to become more demanding of ethical standards, evidence-based practice, and long-lasting change. For occupational psychologists to succeed, the support of fire department management and organizational leaders is a necessity.
Dr. Nicola Davies is a psychologist and freelance writer with expertise in occupational psychology and well-being. You can follow her on Twitter (@healthpsychuk) or sign up for her free blog (http://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/).
