Citation

Riedel M, Smolensky MH, Reinberg A, Touitou Y, Riedel C, Le Floc'h N, Clarisse R. Chronobiol. Int. 2019; 36(7): 979-992.

Affiliation

Université de Tours, Psychologie des Âges de la Vie et Adaptation , Tours , France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07420528.2019.1604538

PMID

31043081

Abstract

We assessed the 24-h pattern of operations-related injuries (ORI) experienced by scheduled off-site/on-call French volunteer firefighters (VFF) through analysis of an archival database. Occurrence and severity - evaluated by number of lost work days (LWD) and total medical costs (TMC) - of ORI were explored in terms of risk ratios, respectively, number of ORI/number of service operations (RR_ORI), number of LWD/number of ORI (RS_LWD,) and TMC/number of ORI (RS_TMC). Additionally, the collective work performance of all involved VFF was measured in terms of the lag time (LT) between emergency call-center firefighter-answered communication for service of observer-presumed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and departure of vehicle from fire station to render aid, designated LT_OHCA. Cosinor and cross-correlation statistical methods were applied. A total of 252 ORI occurred while performing 146,479 service operations. High-amplitude 24 h variation was detected in RR_ORI (p <.003), SR_LWD (p <.001), SR_TMC (p <.012), and LT_OHCA (p <.001), all with nocturnal peak time. Coherence was found between the day/night variation of LT_OHCA and RR_ORI (r = 0.7, p <.0002), SR_LWD (r = 0.5, p <.02), and SR_TMC (r = 0.4, p <.05). This investigation verifies the occurrence and severity of ORI of scheduled off-site/on-call VFF exhibit high-amplitude 24 h patterning with nocturnal excess that closely coincides with their day/night work performance measured by LT_OHCA. These findings, which are essentially identical to ones of a previous study entailing on-site/on-call career firefighters, indicate the need for fatigue management and ORI prevention programs not yet available to VFF, who compose the majority of the field service workforce of French fire departments. Abbreviations:FF: firefighters; CFF: career firefighters; VFF: volunteer firefighters; FD: fire department; LT_OHCA: lag time (LT) response in min:sec between fire department call-center-answered communication for service of presumed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and departure from fire station of vehicle to render aid; LWD: lost work days; ORI: operations-related injuries; SR_LWD: severity ratio of operations-related injuries in terms of number of lost work days, calculated as number of lost work days/number of operations-related injuries; RR_ORI: risk ratio of operations-related injuries calculated as number of operations-related injuries/number of operations; SR_TMC: severity ratio of operations-related injuries in terms of total medical costs, calculated as total medical costs/number of operations-related injuries; TMC: total medical costs.

Language: en

Keywords

24-h patterns; Firefighters; circadian; job performance; offsite/on-call; operations-related injury occurrence and severity; standby work; volunteers