The conditions of occupational accidents, working conditions and the professional satisfaction of the fire fighters who work in intervention units of small and large sized fire department samples in Turkey

The Conditions of Occupational Accidents, Working Conditions and the Professional Satisfaction of the Fire Fighters Who Work in Intervention Units of Small and Large Sized Fire Department Samples in TurkeyFire departments undoubtedly have a significant place in our life. Fire departments interfere with fire, landslide, flood, traffic accidents, earthquakes, drowning and other kinds of conditions that affect the society by risking their lives. The most important factor for these interventions is the manpower. The aim of this study is determining whether the conditions of occupational accidents, working conditions and professional satisfactions of fire fighters in intervention units of fire departments of small and large sized sample provinces in Turkey are same for all provinces or not.The research, which is a descriptive one, was realized between January 2012 and Jun 2012. The workers working in Ankara Intervention Branch Unit sample from big provinces in which fire departments serve with the name of head of fire department, Balıkesir and Sivas samples from small provinces? Intervention Branch Unit are chosen for this study and this study is the first and unique one which aims to reveal the differences between fire departments in Turkey comparatively. The questionnaire form consisting of 60 questions in this research is applied by using under observation face-to-face meeting technique. In the research, 235 people were reached.Statistical significance value is accepted as p<0.05. The data were entered to computer by using SPSS 15.0 statistical software package program, and descriptive statistics and chi-square test are used as statistical method. Data are presented as average (±) standard deviation, number and percentage.All of the participants are male, have an average age of 35,8±10,9, and median age of 33 (20-62). It is determined that 33.1% of participants from Ankara region, 13.5% of participants from Balıkesir region and 10% of participants from Sivas region have an occupational accident in any part of their professional life. 10.5% of participants from Ankara region, 5.8% of participants from Balıkesir region and 2% of participants from Sivas region stated that they faced with KBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radioactive, Nuclear) event. 90.4% of participants from Balıkesir region and 34% of participants from Sivas region stated that the buildings of fire departments are strong enough for earthquake, however 72.2% of participants from Ankara do not consider them strong enough for earthquake. 88.1% of participants thought that it is necessary to be standardized for occupational applications and their job definitions should be clarified.Fire departments have to be gathered under one roof and authorities and responsibilities have to be standardized. Providing equal standards between fire departments for every issue can be beneficial in terms of firefighting.Key words: occupational accident, professional satisfaction, working conditions, fire department, fire fighter.