Study and analysis of obstacles and difficulties of prehospital care in an old urban texture based on SWOT technique (case study: district 11 of Tehran municipality)

Tehran, Iran, has many old urban districts. Thus, it seems that in the event of an incident, pre-hospital care will face obstacles and problems in Tehran. District 11 of Tehran municipality was considered for this research due to the specific characteristics of its old texture and the research experience of the authors. The aim of the present study was to identify and analyze strategic problems and provide suggestions for resolving these problems.
In this study, strategic strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was used. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire and its validity and reliability were confirmed by experts and through calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = 0.8), respectively. The statistical population of the study consisted of all rescue workers of the fire department and residents of district 11 of Tehran. According to the 2011 census, the total population of district 11 of Tehran municipality was 288884. The study sample size was 120 individuals. The study subjects consisted of 30 rescue workers selected with the introduction of the regional fire department experts and 90 ordinary individuals and workers randomly selected from among the residents of District 11. In this study, after completing the questionnaire, the SWOT model was used to evaluate and analyze the data.
Findings: By combining the four factors in the production of strategies of WO, WT, SO, and ST, they were ranked as SO strategy with mean of 3.65 in the first place, ST strategy with mean of 2.74 in the second place, WO strategy with mean of 1.81 in the third place,and WT strategy with mean of 2.72 in the fourth place. The acceptable strategy in this region, giventhat it is located in the first quarter of the outer and inner matrix, wasaggressivestrategy. The findings showed that in the framework of this strategy, strengths can be used to exploit external opportunities.
Erosion and compactness, inappropriate roads, ruined residential areas, excavation sites, erosion of energy corridors, high traffic load, the mounted and dismounted capacity at the entrance were the main weaknesses of the region. On the other hand, historical. background, social structure, geographical location, proximity todowntown, history and historical identity, and strong neighborhood relationships were the most important strengths of the region. The dominant strategy of organizing district 11 was aggressive SO type and favorable opportunities and conditions can be used to eliminate external threats.