Review of methods to identify the critical job-tasks undertaken by the emergency services.
Venturino R Nevola, Maxwell D Lowe, Colin A Marston
PMID 31033477WHAT IT FOUND
No standardised method was found for identifying critical emergency-service job-tasks when setting physical employment standards.
Studies mainly used surveys and expert panels, often based on past or present work rather than future tasks.
Key findings
01No consistent method was evident to determine critical job-tasks for developing physical employment standards.
02Surveys were used in 38 (90%) of the 42 reviewed records, and subject-matter expert or stakeholder panels were used in 34 (81%).
03Only 5 (12%) records sought information about how job-tasks may be conducted in future scenarios, while 37 (88%) limited methods to past or present operations and doctrine.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The review did not assess the quality of the included studies, so the strength of each method's implementation was not judged. Only documents with accessible security classifications were included, and authors reported that limited access to employer information constrained their methods. Most included records were from military and security services, so the review says little about emergency services with little published job-task information. Only English-language studies from 1976 to 2018 were included, and the authors did not contact study authors for more detail.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that a particular physical employment standard is safe, valid or legally defensible. The review describes how studies identified critical job-tasks, and it found no consistent method.