Influence of psychosocial safety climate on occupational health and safety: a scoping review

Methodological issues in measuring psychosocial safety climate: a systematic review protocol

INTRODUCTION

This systematic review aims to highlight the methodological inconsistencies in studying psychosocial safety climate (PSC). Highlighting the diverse dimensions and implications of PSC, this review seeks to enhance the replicability and comparability of studies, contributing to the development of standardised measurement techniques for the construct.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The methodology encompasses a comprehensive search strategy in PubMed Central, Web of Science, Scopus, JSTOR, Embase, Science Direct, ProQuest, Google and Google Scholar from 28 January 2024 to 30 September 2024. A team of trained reviewers, under the guidance of the authors, will scrutinise eligible studies for inclusion based on predefined criteria. This will ensure a diverse yet focused selection of articles aligned with the research objectives. Robust data extraction and appraisal processes will be followed. Adopting a qualitative synthesis approach, the review aims to generate descriptive and analytical themes, uncovering nuanced dimensions of PSC beyond individual study findings. The protocol emphasises consultation with domain experts and a chartered librarian to refine research questions and optimise search strategies for selecting very relevant articles for the review. We will adopt qualitative data synthesis in summarising and presenting the results and findings for our review of PSC methodological issues.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval is not needed for this systematic review because the data for this review will be extracted from already published journal articles. The protocol for this review has been registered in the Open Science Framework. This review and its findings will be published in an academic journal and or presented at scientific conferences.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

OSF registration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3UZC2.

Poor Psychosocial Safety Climate Increases Teleworker Vulnerability to Suicidal Ideation

OBJECTIVE

Suicide is the leading cause of death among the working-age population in Japan. Unlike task-level occupational factors, the relation between suicidal ideation and psychosocial safety climate (PSC), a crucial organization-level factor to protect workers' psychological health, is understudied, especially among teleworkers.

METHODS

A cross-sectional web-based survey was used to select 1988 participants. A series of multivariable logistic regression analyses with the interaction term of PSC and teleworking arrangements was performed.

RESULTS

Poor PSC was associated with a higher risk of having suicidal ideation (adjusted odds ratio = 1.57, P = 0.008), and its relation was pronounced among teleworkers (adjusted odds ratio for the interaction term = 1.96, P = 0.035), even after adjusting for task-level occupational factors.

CONCLUSIONS

This empirical study highlights the heightened risk of suicidal ideation by poor PSC, especially among teleworkers.

Evidence for a Negative Loss Spiral between Co-Worker Social Support and Burnout: Can Psychosocial Safety Climate Break the Cycle?

Previous research suggests that co-worker social support predicts burnout, but this relationship may be far more complex, with the potential for a reciprocal cycle of loss. Leading research on loss spirals has explicitly called for more research on interindividual factors such as social support and, by extension, how interventions that operate on these interpersonal resources could play a role in primary and secondary prevention (i.e., intervening in cycles of loss). In this study, we explore the reciprocal relationship between burnout and co-worker social support, with psychosocial safety climate (PSC) as an upstream predictor and moderator of this relationship. Using hierarchical linear modelling (N = 380 frontline healthcare workers, nested within N = 63 teams) on longitudinal data, we found a reciprocal relationship between burnout and co-worker support, which was both triggered and moderated by PSC. These findings provide initial evidence for a social support-burnout loss spiral, wherein individuals with poor co-worker support are more likely to become burnt-out, and in this depleted state they are subsequently less likely to reach out for those social supports when available, which would, in turn, lead to further burnout. This social support-burnout loss spiral is exacerbated when working in a low-PSC context, as the environment does not send positive safety signals about resource scarcity and replenishment. Therefore, PSC may be a potential target for intervention both in primary prevention (i.e., stopping the loss spiral in the first instance) and in secondary intervention, as high PSC signals to workers already in the burnout-support loss cycle when it is safe to reinvest resources or engage in recovery behavior.