A Study on the Perception, Attitude, and Behavior of Long-Term Care Institution Staff Toward Fire Management-A Case Study of Taichung’s Da-li District

• Main Authors: CHEN, BO-YU, 陳柏宇
• Other Authors: CHANG, YU-CHIA
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/bargbv

碩士 === 亞洲大學 === 健康產業管理學系長期照護組碩士在職專班 === 106 === Background: Due to the exacerbating problems of aging population and low fertility in Taiwan, the demand for residential long-term care institutions (“LTC institutions”) has rapidly increased. However, as the residents of LTC institutions are mostly elderly or physically disabled, their physical mobility is comparatively limited compared to ordinary people. Thus, with poor ability for taking refuge in the event of a fire, most of them need help from others for escaping. Even though government agencies have made relevant improvements to the buildings and fire-fighting equipment of the institutions in recent years, it still has fire accidents occurring in those institutions. It is evident that the real problem lies in "people". If the staffs do not implement fire prevention on ordinary days to reduce the probability of fire occurrence, or if they lack the correct understanding of firefighting, alarm and escape equipment in the event of disaster, no matter how safe the buildings or fire-fighting equipment are, they will not be sufficient for dealing with the ruthless fire. Objective: The aim is to learn about the current status of the "perceptual", "attitudinal" and "behavioral" aspects of the staff in LTC institutions regarding fire protection management and to further explore the factors behind these aspects, as well as the correlation between the three aspects. Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional study design, taking all the LTC institutions in Da-li District of Taichung City as examples, with quantitative surveys and analysis conducted through self-designed structured questionnaires. The questionnaire was based on the Likert five-point scale. The higher the average score of the subjects, the better the perception, attitude, and behavior toward fire management. The statistical analysis part was carried out using SPSS 20.0; it includes sample basic data and descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, single-factor variance analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, complex regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis for each aspect item. Results: A total of 9 LTC institutions were surveyed in this study, and a total of 184 valid questionnaires were collected, with a recovery rate of 59%. The average scores on perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of the staff of LTC institution in Da-li District, Taichung City were 4.32 (±0.44), 4.57 (±0.41), and 4.28 (±0.50), respectively. Among the scores of each aspect, the institution staff has a lower perception score for the "Normally closed safety door should be kept closed". In the attitude item, the score for "There is less manpower at night, so I don't think there is a need for fire drills at night" is low. In the behavior item, the staff has a lower score for "In the event of fire, I think I can use the internal fire-fighting equipment to perform the fire-fighting action correctly." According to the results of the complex regression analysis, the higher the education level with Taiwanese nationality, the higher the perception, attitude, and behavior score of fire management. In terms of age, older age groups have significantly higher scores on perception on fire management. In terms of gender, the scores on fire management behaviors for females were significantly lower than those for males. The results of hierarchical regression analysis show that with other variables controlled, both perception and attitude positively and significantly affect behavior, and attitude has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between perception and behavior. Conclusion: The results of this study show that gender, age, nationality, education level, and seniority will affect the perceptions, attitudes, and behavior of the staff of LTC institutions on fire management. Looking forward to the government's policy planning on fire prevention and internal management of the agencies in the future, education and training should be strengthened for the groups that lack an understanding of the various aspects of fire prevention management, as well as the aspects with weaker scores. In addition, through the improvement on the awareness of fire management, attitudes on fire management would then be improved, which in turn creates positive behaviors related to fire management.