Building Resilience in Firefighters: A Systematic Review

We aimed to identify indicators affecting firefighters’ resilience through a systematic review.

International electronic databases, including Web of Science, Medline through PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar, were searched on Dec 23, 2018. The search strategy was developed using main words, including firefighter, resilience, and indicators. Then, the indicators related to firefighters’ resilience were extracted and analyzed using a qualitative synthesis method.

Overall, 7178 unique documents were identified by searching different databases. Then, by screening the title and abstract, 7104 articles were excluded, and only 74 full text papers were critically studied. Finally, 31 full text articles were selected for the analysis. Quality appraisal of included studies done by modified STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) tool. Moreover, 186 indicators and criteria were extracted from the included studies and classified into 6 domains and 15 categories.

This study suggests six main domains, including physical health, physical fitness, mental health, life style, job-related competencies, and demographic status, to categorize different indicators of firefighters’ resilience. Building resilience in firefighters requires all these domains to be considered in the assessment, planning, and evaluation processes.