Work-related risk factors for mental ill-health among Australian wildland firefighters

A qualitative study of Australian wildland firefighters employed by a state government agency was undertaken to: (i) explore the perceived impact of work-related stress factors on participants' psychological health; and (ii) identify organisational strategies or approaches that firefighters believe could help to protect or improve their psychological health. Twenty-five participants took part in the first round of interviews and 24 participants took part in the second round of interviews. A theoretical model of work-related determinants of psychological health developed by Harvey et al. (2017) was used to inform the thematic coding of interview data. Participants reported a wide variety of work-related stressors that they believe affect their psychological wellbeing. All of the stressors identified by Harvey et al. (2017) were evident in the firefighters' descriptions of work characteristics and experiences that they believe affect their psychological health, including job insecurity, high job demands, low job control, low social support, work-family conflict and issues related to recognition and reward. However, the wildland firefighters also identified exposure to dangerous work, limited training opportunities, inconsistent application of organisational policies and procedures and administrative workload and demands associated with the community interface as affecting their psychological health. The findings indicate that wildland firefighters perceive no single work-related factor as contributing to psychological ill-health. Rather, the firefighters indicated that their psychological health is affected by the experience of multiple psychosocial risk factors that coexist and interact with one another in the work environment. Firefighters also identified a wide variety of organisational strategies that they believe could reduce the risk of psychological ill-health associated with work stress. Participants' suggestions provide practical, actionable solutions with the potential to reduce exposure to stressors in the organisational work environment and better protect wildland firefighters against harm to their psychological health.