(56) DOES CALL VOLUME, SEX, AND AGE INFLUENCE QUALITY OF LIFE IN CAREER FIREFIGHTERS?

Firefighters have physically strenuous careers and must work long shifts. In addition, fire stations across a city receive varying quantities of calls for service. Quality of life is a metric that has been previously investigated within the fire service; however, the influence of call volume, sex, and age on career firefighter quality of life is unknown.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to investigate the influence of call volume, sex, and age on the quality of life in career firefighters.

Methods: Two hundred and forty career firefighters (9 females; age = 41 ± 9 years, BMI = 29.50 ± 4.55 kg/m²) from a single department in Texas completed a survey for this project. Participants were asked to self-report demographic data (i.e., age, sex, height, weight) and quality of life in the survey. Quality of life was estimated using a visual analog scale (VAS) from 0 to 100. Participants were asked to mark their current quality of life on a line where “0” represented the worse state and “100” represented perfect quality of life. Fire stations’ call volumes were categorized into low, medium, or high call volumes based on the number of calls received. A multiple linear regression analysis was completed to estimate the effects of call volume category (low, medium, high), sex, and age on quality of life in career firefighters. The independent variables were call volume category (low, medium, high), sex, and age. The dependent variable was quality of life. Demographic data is reported as mean ± standard deviations. Alpha level was set to 0.05.

Results: The sample consisted of 9 female and 231 male career firefighters. The quality of life reported for the sample was 78.87 ± 15.02. The multiple linear regression outcomes indicate no significant relationship between call volume category (low, medium, high), sex, and age (F(4, 212) = 1.921, p = 0.11, R² = 0.02).

Conclusions: The findings suggest that call volume category, sex, and age do not influence quality of life in career firefighters. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: While the present results suggest that call volume, sex, and age may not impact quality of life in career firefighters, future investigations may wish to consider a larger sample or other job-specific variables (i.e., hours on-shift, overtime work) that may influence quality of life in the fire service.

Acknowledgements: None