Abstract
Objective
To examine cardiovascular responses to medical (MED) and fire (FIRE) alarm tones in firefighters.
Methods
Heart rate was collected throughout 24-h shifts (N = 41). Call logs were utilized post hoc to identify heart rate at the time the alarm sounded (TIMETONE), peak heart rate following the alarm (TIMEPEAK), and heart rate at the time of station departure (TIMEDEPART) for MED and FIRE calls. A 2X3 (TONE x TIME) split-plot mixed-model repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and least significant differences tests examined the influence of tone type on heart rate, expressed as a percent of age estimated maximum. Bivariate Pearson correlations examined the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and TIMEPEAK and TIMEDEPART. An alpha of 0.05 determined statistical significance and Bonferroni Corrections were applied to post hoc comparisons (p < 0.017).
Results
Follow-up analyses for the significant 2 × 3 repeated-measures ANOVA (p = 0.035) indicated differences in heart rate for MED (p < 0.001) and FIRE (p < 0.001) where TIMETONE < TIMEPEAK, TIMETONE < TIMEDEPART, and TIMEPEAK > TIMEDEPART. There was a non-significant simple effect of time for MED and FIRE at TIMETONE (p = 0.259), but significant effects of tone type where FIRE > MED at TIMEPEAK (p < 0.001) and TIMEDEPART (p = 0.002). There was a significant small positive relationship between BMI and TIMEPEAK (p = 0.002) and TIMEDEPART (p < 0.001) for MED only.
Conclusions
Alarms increased heart rates to a greater extent in FIRE than MED calls. Higher BMI was related to greater heart rate responses in MED but was unrelated to FIRE response.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [RM]. The data are not publicly available due to information that could compromise research participant confidentiality.
Code availability
IBM SPSS 25 statistical software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) was used to analyze the data. No software or custom coding was used.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the City of Milwaukee Fire Department, in particular Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing and Assistant Chief John Schwengel along with the firefighter participants who made this study possible.
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This study was not funded.
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KE conceived and designed research. KE and CT collected data. RM analyzed data and developed the manuscript. RM is the first author and KE is a senior author. All authors contributed to the editing of the manuscript and approved the final submission.
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Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declarations of Helsinki.
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Marciniak, R.A., Tesch, C.J. & Ebersole, K.T. Heart rate response to alarm tones in firefighters. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 94, 783–789 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-020-01646-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-020-01646-y