Occupational Medicine & Health Affairs
Open Access

Abstract

Introduction: It has long been recognized that operational firefighters are potentially exposed to a wide variety of harmful substances or physical agents. Such exposure may occur through a variety of ways including by inhalation and skin contact although advances in personal protective apparently helped reduce these risks in recent years. In 2007 IARC convened a working group to assess the carcinogenicity of a variety of professions including firefighters, the working group has identified considerable difficulty to reliably quantify the harmful occupational exposures firefighters but concluded by ranking professional firefighter exposure as possibly carcinogenic to humans ( Group 2B). In addition to exposure to a possible carcinogen, and other forms of ill health could also be provided. For example, with respect to potential effects on respiratory health from inhalation of smoke and other substances ribeiro et al (2009 ) have recently reported a cross-sectional survey of poor health of the airways (based on self -reported questionnaires ) the authors concluded that firefighters had a prevalence of respiratory symptoms and asthma higher than did a comparison group of policemen. Rescue victims is a particularly stressful activity, in fact, besides the usual stressors, there are those related to the pace of job (night work and 24-hour alerts, fluctuating workload, operating in a vacuum) and potential exposure to psychological trauma. Goebe et al examined the risk of death at various spots in the fight against the fire in male firefighters and found that firefighters were much more likely to die from cardiovascular events related in activities extinction fire, alarm response time and the alarm returns when compared to non- urgent tasks. The work of firefighters is not comfortable or easy; it is a profession that exposes a person to a high level of personal stress and danger, the first time an emergency is detected until that the last day of service. The work of firefighters is not comfortable or easy, it is a profession that exposes a person to a high level of personal stress and danger, the first time an emergency is detected until that the last day of service. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of stress in response to fire officials. Identify psychosocial and organizational factors that may be associated. Materials and methods: Through a descriptive cross-sectional epidemiological study of factors leading to job stress among a population of firefighters from the main unit Oran over a period of one year based on the questionnaire and Karasek questionnaire socio professional features institutional and organizational factors. Results: Our study affects a population of 154 firefighters predominantly male with a mean age of 32.4±8 years. The average length of workstation is 5.9±5 years. The personal medical ATCDS found among agents, diabetes was 1.9% and 1.2% hypertension. According to the score of the three components of Karasek, we noted a prevalence of 61.7% of firefighters are experiencing job strain with 8.4% severe degree of stress according to the visual analogue scale VAS and 52.5% are living in iso-strain. Among the psychosocial and organizational risk found in the workplace 33.3% of the population surveyed said that stress is increased when working with a patient with severe prognosis, 27.6% in natural disasters, 11.5% during intervention on fire and 39.1% who feels the stress alarm time. Handed that 26.3% complained workflow. Conclusion: Our study clarified the prevalence, institutional and organizational factors of stress among firefighters and can cause deterioration in their health. To this end, preventive measures are required to reduce the intensity of perceived stress.

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