Assessment of wildland firefighter opinions and experiences related to incident medical providers

Abstract

Background Medical services for wildland fire incidents are vital and fire personnel need to be comfortable seeking care and have adequate access to care. Aims The aim of this study was to examine wildland firefighters’ (WLFFs) attitudes towards, opinions of and experiences with the medical services on fire assignments. Methods A survey was used to collect information from WLFFs. The survey covered: (1) demographics, (2) injury descriptions, (3) trust/respect toward medical personnel, and (4) perceived impact of injury treatment on individual and team deployability. Analysis used contingency tables with chi-square tests to compare groups. Key results WLFFs in both groups respect and trust incident medical personnel. Private firefighters compared with agency firefighters report a perception of less access to care, a high level of discouragement to seek care, and a greater concern that seeking care could result in being removed from the incident. Conclusions Although respect and trust are high, there are concerning perceived differences between groups on several aspects of seeking and receiving medical care. Implications Policy changes and culture shifts may be needed to narrow the opinion and perception gaps between private and agency firefighters on multiple aspects of incident medical services.