Davidson Louise, Carter Holly, Drury John, Amlôt Richard, Haslam S Alexander
School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, United Kingdom.
Behavioural Science and Insights Unit, UK Health Security Agency, Porton Down, SP4 0JG, United Kingdom.
Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2022 Jul;77:103101. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103101. Epub 2022 Jun 9.
Previous research shows there are persistent challenges with multi-agency response centring on problems of communication and coordination. The Social Identity Approach provides an important psychological framework for analysing relations within and between groups which can be used to understand why challenges in multi-agency response occur, and what can be done to prevent them re-occurring in the future. To explore this issue, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 responders from the Police, and Fire and Rescue Services who were involved in Pandemic Multi-Agency Response Teams (PMART) during the initial months of the COVID-19. These teams responded to suspected COVID-19 deaths in the community. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Results show that responders appeared to share the pre-existing superordinate identity of all being members of the . This identity was made salient as a result of responders experiencing positive contact with each other. Responders also shared the situational superordinate identity of which was both created, and then made salient, through positive contact with each other, as well as responders sharing difficult experiences. At the same time though, structural factors such as inequalities in building access and different shift patterns increased the salience of sub-group identities in ways that created conflict between these identities, as well as operational challenges for joint working. This research advances our understanding of multi-agency working from a social identity perspective by providing evidence of a shared social identity at an operational level of emergency response. Practical implications of this research are discussed.
先前的研究表明，以沟通和协调问题为核心的多机构应对存在持续挑战。社会认同方法为分析群体内部和群体之间的关系提供了一个重要的心理学框架，可用于理解多机构应对中挑战产生的原因，以及如何采取措施防止这些挑战在未来再次出现。为了探讨这个问题，我们对14名来自警察、消防和救援服务部门的应急人员进行了半结构化访谈，他们在新冠疫情最初几个月参与了大流行多机构应对小组（PMART）。这些小组对社区中疑似新冠死亡事件做出响应。访谈采用主题分析法进行分析。结果表明，应急人员似乎共享了作为……所有成员的预先存在的上级身份。由于应急人员彼此之间有积极的接触，这种身份变得突出。应急人员还共享了……的情境上级身份，这种身份通过彼此之间的积极接触以及应急人员分享艰难经历而得以形成并变得突出。然而，与此同时，诸如建筑物出入不平等和不同轮班模式等结构因素，以在这些身份之间造成冲突以及给联合工作带来操作挑战的方式，增加了亚群体身份的显著性。这项研究通过提供应急响应操作层面共享社会身份的证据，从社会认同角度推进了我们对多机构合作的理解。讨论了这项研究的实际意义。
