| The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services (AFFES) employs close to 800 forest firefighters who are stationed at 20 bases across Ontario during the fire season. Each season, these workers are faced with physical and psychological challenges as a result of their job duties. The OMNR AFFES records detailed information regarding two types of workplace injury: First aid and Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB). These two categories of injury are mutually exclusive; any injury sustained by a worker will get recorded as one of the two. A comprehensive literature review identified age, gender, fitness, history of injury, worker experience, job stress, and personality traits as relevant covariates of injury in physically demanding occupations. The present study is the first to identify the contributions of physical and psychological factors on the likelihood injury among forest firefighters. Participants were male and female forest firefighters employed by the OMNR, aged between 18 and 65 years. A total of 252 firefighters participated in the study. Data were collected using two self-administered instruments: The NEO Personality Inventory and the Job Stress Survey. Secondary data were collected from the OMNR, and data were analyzed by way of various multivariate techniques, using SPSS 20.0. Workers who were older, had a history of injury, and scored high on the personality construct Neuroticism, or low on the Openness construct were significantly more likely to incur a first aid injury. In addition, high job stress was a significant predictor of WSIB injury. This study suggests that first aid and WSIB injuries in this organization are quite distinct phenomena, and that different factors need consideration in their prediction. It is recommended that managers and decision-makers in the field of forest firefighting consider factors such as job stress, personality, and the prior occurrence of injuries in their allocation of human and financial resources. |
