Rehearsal-plus: Coping with fire emergencies and reducing fire-related fears

Abstract

The relative impact of two experimental conditions?rehearsal-plus and behavioral rehearsal?was assessed to determine their influence on acquiring and maintaining fire evacuation skills, as well as reducing fire-related fears. These experimental conditions were compared with two control groups, attention control and wait-list control. The subjects were 40 second- and third-grade children who were randomly assigned to the four groups. Behavioral rehearsal subjects received fire evacuation skills training and verbally rehearsed these skills. Rehearsal-plus subjects were taught fire evacuation skills and a strategy targeting reduction of fire-related fears. Attention control and wait-list control subjects were not taught evacuations skills or fear reduction. All subjects' evacuation skills and fear of fire-related stimuli were assessed at pre-, post-, and follow-up tests. No pretest differences were observed. At post-test, the rehearsal-plus group reported significantly more fear reduction than the other three groups. Behavioral rehearsal and rehearsal-plus groups displayed significantly more evacuation skills than the control groups. At follow-up, the rehearsal-plus group had retained more of their evacuation skills than the control groups; no differences were found among groups concerning fear reduction at this time. We concluded that rehearsal-plus appears to be useful in acquiring.