Dawson Drew, Mayger Katherine, Thomas Matthew J W, Thompson Kirrilly
Central Queensland University Appleton Institute, South Australia, Australia.
University of South Australia, Australia.
Accid Anal Prev. 2015 Nov;84:92-8. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2015.06.008. Epub 2015 Aug 31.
An increasing number and intensity of catastrophic fire events in Australia has led to increasing demands on a mainly volunteer fire-fighting workforce. Despite the increasing likelihood of fatigue in the emergency services environment, there is not yet a systematic, unified approach to fatigue management in fire agencies across Australia. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to identify informal strategies used in volunteer fire-fighting and examine how these strategies are transmitted across the workforce. Thirty experienced Australian volunteer fire-fighters were interviewed in August 2010. The study identified informal fatigue-management behaviours at the individual, team and brigade level that have evolved in fire-fighting environments and are regularly implemented. However, their purpose was not explicitly recognized as such. This apparent paradox - that fatigue proofing behaviours exist but that they are not openly understood as such - may well resolve a potential conflict between a culture of indefatigability in the emergency services sector and the frequent need to operate safely while fatigued. However, formal controls require fire-fighters and their organisations to acknowledge and accept their vulnerability. This suggests two important areas in which to improve formal fatigue risk management in the emergency services sector: (1) identifying and formalising tacit or informal fatigue coping strategies as legitimate elements of the fatigue risk management system; and (2) developing culturally appropriate techniques for systematically communicating fatigue levels to self and others.
澳大利亚灾难性火灾事件的数量和强度不断增加，这使得对主要由志愿者组成的消防队伍的需求也日益增长。尽管在应急服务环境中疲劳的可能性越来越大，但澳大利亚各地的消防机构尚未形成一种系统、统一的疲劳管理方法。因此，本研究的目的是确定志愿消防中使用的非正式策略，并研究这些策略是如何在全体消防人员中传播的。2010年8月，对30名经验丰富的澳大利亚志愿消防员进行了访谈。该研究确定了在消防环境中演变而来并经常实施的个人、团队和大队层面的非正式疲劳管理行为。然而，它们的目的并未得到明确认可。这种明显的矛盾——即存在抗疲劳行为，但人们并未公开意识到这一点——很可能解决应急服务部门不知疲倦的文化与疲劳时仍需安全作业的频繁需求之间的潜在冲突。然而，正式的控制措施要求消防员及其组织承认并接受自身的脆弱性。这表明在应急服务部门改善正式疲劳风险管理有两个重要领域：（1）将隐性或非正式的疲劳应对策略识别并规范为疲劳风险管理系统的合法组成部分；（2）开发符合文化习惯的技术，用于系统地向自己和他人传达疲劳程度。
