Elements That Impact on Participants’ Psychological Suffering in Simplified Fire Drills

Abstract

Necessary fire drills can effectively prevent or reduce fire hazards on the one hand, and on the other hand, they may also bring a certain amount of psychological suffering to participants. In order to identify elements influencing participants' psychological suffering, this study distributed a specially designed questionnaire to postgraduate students who had experienced fire drills in London. The questionnaires were designed on the awareness of precaution, the level of participation, the rank of satisfaction, the number of fire drills experienced, procedural arrangements, and the participants' general evaluation, and this research assessed their impact on participants' psychological suffering with the help of multiple regression. An analysis of the 656 questionnaires shows that the awareness of precaution, the level of participation, the rank of satisfaction, the number of fire drills experienced, procedural arrangements, and the participants' general evaluation all significantly impacted participants' psychological suffering. Based on these, we offered four recommendations that could efficiently decrease participants' psychological suffering. They are gradually improving participants' awareness of precaution, increasing the degree of components' engagement in fire drills, redesigning the procedural arrangement of simplified fire drills timely, and limiting the frequency of fire drills appropriately.