Belief Factors Associated With Employees’ Intention to Evacuate During a Fire Alarm

Abstract

Background: Nonresidential fires and resultant injuries and deaths have been on the rise the last decade in the United States. Although evacuation is a primary prevention method, people in the workplace still fail to evacuate when they hear a fire alarm. The current formative study applied the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) to identify belief factors associated with university employees’ intention evacuate. Methods: Data were collected from employees at a large public university ( N = 490) through an online survey. Multiple linear regression quantified the relative contribution of six RAA constructs that represent belief factors underlying employees’ intention to leave the office building immediately the next time they hear a fire alarm. Findings: Nearly 60% of the variation in employees’ intention to leave was predicted from the belief factors, adjusted R2 = 0.598, F(17, 472) = 43.80, p < .001. Controlling for demographic characteristics, five of the six RAA global constructs showed statistically significant independent associations with intention: instrumental attitude ( B = .272, SE = .026, p < .001), experiential attitude ( B = −.073, SE = .026, p = .024), injunctive norm ( B = .210, SE = .075, p < .001), descriptive norm ( B = .347, SE = .070, p < .001), and capacity ( B = .178, SE = .077, p < .001). Conclusions/Applications to Practice: These findings show the RAA can be successfully applied to provide employees’ perspective on safety decisions like evacuation. The belief factors’ relative contributions can help safety professionals prioritize interventions to facilitate leaving immediately. Here the high weights for the two normative factors suggest addressing employees’ descriptive beliefs that others like them leave and their injunctive beliefs that significant others, like supervisors and safety personnel, approve of their leaving.

Beliefs of University Employees Leaving During a Fire Alarm: A Theory-based Belief Elicitation

“…as potential determinants of intention. As described in detail in our earlier paper, PN made statistically significant independent contributions to intention, suggesting that normative factors further our theoretical understanding of occupational fire safety behaviors [ 16 ]. Prior studies [ 12 , 13 ] have noted that norms are a key determinant in understanding and changing behavior, especially with family/friends for home-based behaviors and with coworkers/supervisors for occupational-based behaviors.…”

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Fig. 1 Applying the Reasoned Action Approach: Understanding how university employees decide whether to leave their office immediately when they hear an alarm∗ ∗Bolded items significantly related to intention [ 16 ].

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“…Participants reported their age, gender, race/ethnicity, education level, and employment status. Details on sample size calculation and recruitment strategy are described elsewhere [ 16 ]. Four variables found in the literature to be associated with evacuation were included as background characteristics [ [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] ].…”

“…Perceived consequences were elicited with two open-ended questions: “Name one advantage or good thing that might happen if you immediately leave the office building the next time you hear a fire alarm at work” and “Name one disadvantage or bad thing …” Perceived referents were elicited with two open-ended questions: “Name one type of person or group who would approve of you leaving the office building immediately the next time you hear a fire alarm at work” and “Name one type of person or group who would disapprove …” Perceived circumstances were elicited with two-open-ended questions: “Name one thing that would make it easier for you to leave the office building immediately the next time you hear a fire alarm at work,” and “Name one thing that would make it harder …”. Internal reliability consistency and validity of the measures are also described elsewhere [ 16 ].…”

“…In a prior analysis, we examined how AA, PN, and PBC predicted the intention of a sample of university employees in the U.S. to evacuate immediately during a fire alarm at work, and we found that 59.8% of the variation in intention was predicted by RAA's three global constructs [ 16 ]. Given the success of the RAA predicting intention among university employees to evacuate during a fire alarm at work, the next step in applying the theory is to identify the beliefs underlying AA, PN, and PBC via a salient belief elicitation (SBE).…”