An evaluation and validation of simulated emergency tasks for firefighting

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate and validate simulated emergency tasks (SETs) as representative of the fire emergency environment. This evaluation and investigation comprised of a desk-based systematic review, a critical appraisal of previous work, and four experimental studies. The findings then informed the development of a standard operating procedure for implementing SETs within the context of firefighting, both for research and professional purposes. Firefighters participated in four experimental studies that involved completing a submaximal treadmill test and a maximal strength test (Study One); a novel SET that included psychological demands (Study Two); two cognitive tasks, a memory recall task and a problem-solving task (Study Three); and a second attempt of the SET completed 12 weeks later (Study Four). Data collection included repeated measures of state anxiety, mood states, and positive and negative affect and heart rate was measured throughout. The SET (Study Two and Four) and Study Three included measures of cognitive performance. The SET increased negative affect and resulted in lower cognitive performance. These findings indicate the SET to be psychologically demanding and to involve greater psychological demands than the lab setting. The SET also demonstrated validity and test-retest reliability as a measure of the physical and physiological demands of firefighting, with associations observed between SET performance time and SET heart rate and VO2-max. These findings provide evidence to support the inclusion of psychological demands within SETs in order to improve the overall validity of SETs, and validate a novel SET that includes psychological demands, along with physical and physiological demands, as representative of the fire emergency environment. These findings provide a starting point for further examination and validation of the inclusion of the psychological demands within SETs and the development of an empirically supported SOP which has practice and policy implications.