Investigating Organizational Safety Climate and Its Impact on Incidence of Unsafe Behaviors among Firefighters

Accidents may occur in all occupations. However, firefighting is considered as one of the most dangerous occupations considering firefighters’ perception of security, work-related injury rate, safety behaviors, attitudes and norms. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the correlation between the organizational safety climate and unsafe behaviors among firefighters.

This was a descriptive and survey research. The statistical population included all the managers and employees working in a fire department consisting of 16 fire stations in Tehran. A researcher-made checklist and an organizational safety climate questionnaire were used to assess the prevalence of unsafe behaviors and safety climate. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 software.

The employees’ mean age, body mass index (BMI) and work, rest and exercise duration were 32.5±66.83 years old, 25.69±3.7, 9.2±14.1 h/d, 8.15±1.73 h/d and 5.44±4.46 h/w, respectively. Also, 66% of the employees were overweight and 29% had normal weight. Among the safety climate dimensions, the highest mean was related to management commitment to safety issues (33.7±62.68) and the lowest mean was related to priority over products (6.1±03.63). Unsafe behaviors were mostly associated with lack of using the breathing apparatus in small fires (91.9%) as well as personal protective equipment (PPE) (77.4%) in accidents and not performing operations with inappropriate physical condition (38.7%). The t-test results revealed a significant correlation between the safety climate and prevalence of unsafe behaviors (P≤0.05). Moreover, a significant correlation was observed between the employees’ knowledge, participation, attitudes and environmental safety (P≤0.05). However, no significant correlation was found between emergency preparedness, safety priority and ignoring risks.

Organizational safety climate could affect and predict the employees’ behaviors. Therefore, it is recommended that fire department managers develop a plan to achieve the required safety climate and improve the safety climate level.