Research on the influence of role stressors on unsafe behavior among construction workers in China

Individuals' unsafe behavior is identified as one of the important reasons leading to construction industry accidents. The purpose of the present study is to explore the mechanism of role stressors' impact on unsafe behavior, the mediating role of psychological strain and the moderating role of empowering leadership among construction workers. The sample used for the analyses in this study includes 600 employees from 10 different construction companies in China. Bootstrap analysis was performed to explore the mediating role of psychology strain, and hierarchical linear regression analysis was performed to explore the moderating role of empowering leadership. The results showed that role stressors were positively related to unsafe behavior; psychology strain mediates the relationship between role stressors and unsafe behavior; and empowering leadership moderates the relationship between psychological strain and unsafe behavior. The findings indicate that empowering leadership can decrease unsafe behavior.

Dual-Attitude Decision-Making Processes of Construction Worker Safety Behaviors: A Simulation-Based Approach

Workplace accidents are of great concern in the construction industry. Most of those accidents are caused by unsafe behavior in the workplace. Many previous studies have analyzed the causes of workers' unsafe behaviors, but few have investigated workers' feelings of insecurity from the perspective of systematic psychological theory. This study developed an attitude-behavior-intervention feedback loop mechanism of construction workers and used the dual-attitude theory to explain the occurrence mechanisms of unsafe behavior. Using this mechanism, an active-intervention system-dynamics model and a passive-intervention system-dynamics model were designed and simulated. The coefficient of the system dynamics equation in the simulation model involved meta-analysis to combine the correlation coefficients of existing studies, which increased the sample size and improved the statistical test efficiency. The results show that an implicit safety attitude has a more significant impact on safety behavior, and the effect of an active intervention is stronger than that of a passive intervention. Based on these results, this paper presents some feasible suggestions to reduce the probability of unsafe worker behaviors occurring.

Pain catastrophizing, kinesiophobia and fear-avoidance in non-specific work-related low-back pain as predictors of sickness absence

The influence of pain catastrophizing, kinesiophobia and fear-avoidance attitudes towards non-specific low-back pain has been scarcely studied in an occupational insurance provider context. The objective of this work is to ascertain the relationship between these psychosocial variables with work absence, its duration and the disability of subjects with work-related low back pain. This is a descriptive observational methodological strategy. All patients with work-related non-specific low back pain who attended to an occupational health hospital during the study period were included consecutively. Clinical variables of kinesiophobia, pain catastrophizing, fear-avoidance attitudes, disability and pain were collected; sociodemographic variables of sex, age, type of work, educational level, occupational status and duration in days of work absence were recorded. Kinesiophobia (b = 1.43, P = 0.011, r = 0.333), fear-avoidance beliefs in its global dimension (b = 0.910, P = 0.014, r = 0.321), fear-avoidance beliefs in its work dimension (b = 1.255, P = 0.016, r = 0.321) and pain catastrophizing (b = 0.997, P = 0.013, r = 0.340) show individual association with the duration of sickness absence. Kinesiophobia (b = 0.821, P = 0.011, r = 0.30) and fear-avoidance beliefs (b = 1.760, P = 0.016, r = 0.28) are associated with disability (Kinesiophobia, b = 0.880, P = 0.045, r = 0.26; Fear-avoidance beliefs, b = 0.724, P = 0.010, r = 0.34). Kinesiophobia, fear-avoidance beliefs and pain catastrophizing are related to an increase in the duration of work absence and disability in patients with back pain in an occupational insurance provider context.

Antecedents of safety behavior in construction: A literature review and an integrated conceptual framework

There has been no scarcity in the literature of suggested antecedents of employee safety behavior, and this paper brings together the disaggregated antecedents of safety behavior in the construction field. In total, 101 eligible empirical articles are obtained. Bibliometric and context analyses are combined to identify the influential journals, scholars, keywords, use of theory, research methods, and countries or regions of the empirical samples. The 83 factors that are identified are divided into five groups, namely (a) individual characteristics, (b) workgroup interactions, (c) work and workplace design, (d) project management and organization, and (e) family, industry, and society. This indicates that the causes of safety behavior are manifold. Various factors from different systems likely work in concert to create situations in which an individual chooses to comply with safety rules and participate voluntarily in safety activities. Given this, we propose that safety behavior is only an ostensible symptom of more complex "The Self-Work-Home-Industry/Society" systems and establish a safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model. Based on this model, we develop a resource flow model, illustrating why, how, and when the flow of resources between the five systems-namely the self system, work system, home system, work-home interface system, and industry/society system-either promotes or inhibits safety behavior. The safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model and resource flow model are based mainly on bioecological system theory and resources theories. Avenues for future theoretical development and method designs are suggested based on the reviewed findings and the two conceptual models. The intention with this systematic review together with the two integrated conceptual models is to advance theoretical thinking on how safety behavior can be promoted, or instead, inhibited.

Group dynamics analysis and the correction of coal miners' unsafe behaviors

The rate of coal mine accidents in China is still high and most coal mine accidents are caused by human unsafe behavior, and the correction of the behavior is, therefore, paramount. In this article, a group dynamics field model and a hierarchical index system of the group dynamics factors of the unsafe behavior of coal miners are established. The internal and external dynamics of groups are analyzed and the importance of each factor is calculated and determined. On this basis, suggested correction measures are put forward. Then, in combination with a questionnaire, the corrective measures of unsafe behaviors are determined and simulated. The results show that, while the correction of unsafe behaviors both in progress and after implementation can achieve good results, the former is more effective than the latter. Via the present research, both unsafe behaviors and the occurrence of coal mine accidents can be effectively prevented, and the safety of coal mine production can be ensured.

The relationship between workplace justice and self-reported occupational accidents in construction employees of Taiwan

This study investigated the correlation between workplace justice and self-reported occupational accidents among employees of construction industry in Taiwan, and data from a national survey of employees in 2013 was analyzed. This study sampled a total of 1,543 employees age 25 to 65 in the construction industry, among whom 1,379 were men and 164 were women. Information regarding the experience of work-related accidents occurring over the previous 12 months prior to the survey was obtained by a standardized questionnaire. Also obtained were participants' employment conditions, self-reported health, job demands as well as workplace justice. The prevalence rates of occupational accidents in man and women were 22.84% and 13.41%, respectively. Under controlling participants' employment conditions, self-reported health and job demands there was higher rate of occupational accidents among male construction employees with lower workplace justice. This study provides directions for occupational safety and health interventions.

Multilevel Job Demands and Resources: Cross-level Effects of Competing Organizational Facet-Specific Climates on Risky Safety Behaviors

Both individual demands (i.e., workload) and organizational demands and resources (i.e., production pressure and safety climates) may affect the likelihood that employees undertake risky safety behaviors in different ways. Adopting an organizational multilevel perspective, the aim of the present research was fourfold: (1) to examine the impact of individual-level job demands (i.e., workload) on the enactment of risky safety behaviors; (2) to evaluate the effects of coexisting and competing organizational facet-specific climates (i.e., for safety and for production pressure) on the above outcome; (3) to assess their cross-level interactions with individual job demands, and (4) to test the interaction among such organizational demands and resources in shaping risky behaviors. A series of multilevel regression models tested on surveydata from 1375 employees nested within 33 organizations indicated that high workload increases the likelihood of employees enacting risky safety behaviors, while organizational safety and production pressure climates showed significant and opposite direct effects on this safety outcome. Moreover, organizational safety climate significantly mitigated the effect of individual job demands on risky safety behaviors, while organizational production pressure climate exacerbated this individual-level relationship. Finally, organizational safety climate mitigates the cross-level direct effect of organizational production pressure climate on the enactment of risky safety behaviors.

[Cumulative incidence, comorbility and disability for anxiety disorders in patients of a mutual worker accident.]

OBJECTIVE

Neurotic disorders are one of the main health problems of Western societies. Its impact on labor productivity grows exponentially with an increase in its incidence and the duration of temporary disability (TD) processes. To know the characteristics of the patients belonging to a mutual of work accidents who had transient disability due to neurotic disorders, their temporal and geographic distribution, their comorbidities and those variables that affected their duration.

METHODS

Retrospective descriptive study of the workers protected from a mutual of work accidents, national scope, who studied a disability period between 2006-2016 with diagnoses included between codes 300 and 300.9 of the CIE-9-CM, corresponding to Neurotic Disorders. We analyze clinical-demographic variables of patients, comorbidities during studied period and distributions by year and province, by Bayesian inference. We performed a logistic regression for the dependent variable duration of the TD adjusted for age, sex, toxic consumption, consultations, year, regulatory base and payment type.

RESULTS

We registered 56,619 processes in Spain, which corresponded to 1.5% of the total TD processes served in the period. The highest percentage of cases was grouped between 2007 and 2009, when 11% of the population were registered annually. The variables associated with an increase in this duration were: older age, male sex, psychiatric and psychological consultations, diagnostic year, regulatory base (whose average was 50.5 euros) and type of payment (delegate in 78.2% of cases and direct in 21.8%). The prevalence by provinces was more marked in the north and the islands (Barcelona, Lleida, Las Palmas, Islas Baleares, Coruña, Cantabria, Girona, Álava, Tarragona, Pontevedra y Asturias they have more than 6%).The durations of the disability were greater in the east of the country. The most prevalent comorbidities during the study period were low back pain (with an average of 65.1 days of IT anxiety), cervical pain (with an average of 67 days) and digestive disorders (with an average of 59.4 days).

CONCLUSIONS

There are comorbidities and variables associated with the temporary disability derived from neurotic disorders, with geographical differences. Deepening their knowledge and impact could promote better preventive and therapeutic approaches that allow an earlier functional recovery.

Stigma at work: The psychological costs and benefits of the pressure to work safely

INTRODUCTION

Workplace accidents and injuries can be quite costly to both individual employees and their organizations. While safety climate (i.e., perceptions of policies and procedures related to safety that should reflect an organization's value of safety) has been established as a predictor of safety behaviors, less research has considered the possible negative pressures that could result from an environment that emphasizes safety. Though organizations may intend to create a positive safety climate, concerns about being treated differently if an employee were to be involved in a safety incident may result in unintended, but detrimental safety and health outcomes.

METHOD

This study investigated the stigma associated with being involved in a safety-related incident in relation to self-reported safety behaviors and psychological health outcomes. The data were acquired through a two-wave prospective design, surveying workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; N = 528) who indicated they were exposed to at least one physical work stressor (e.g., heavy lifting; air quality; standing for extended periods) a few times each month or more.

RESULTS

When controlling for safety climate, safety stigma was related to decreased safety compliance and poorer psychological health. There was a marginally significant interaction between safety stigma and safety motivation in relation to safety compliance.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that experiencing pressure to work safely, for fear of being evaluated negatively, may actually come at the cost of employees' safety compliance and psychological health. Practical applications: These results may be useful in assessing and intervening to improve an organization's safety climate. Organizations should closely examine the climate for safety to ensure that positive aspects of safety are not undermined by a stigmatizing pressure associated with safety in the work environment.

Information needs of bereaved families following fatal work incidents

The sudden and unexpected nature of fatal work incidents can leave family members with a strong need to know how and why the worker died. Forty Australian family members were interviewed to identify the information sought following fatal work incidents and explore the factors enhancing or impairing satisfaction with the account of the death. Findings demonstrated that employers tended to divert responsibility to the worker, to mask underlying systemic failures. Satisfaction was enhanced if family members believed a sense of justice was attained and formal investigations were able to expose the truth and those responsible for the death were identified.

Cognitive failures in response to emotional contagion: Their effects on workplace accidents

The purpose of this study was to examine contagion of positive and negative emotions among employees as an antecedent of cognitive failures and subsequent workplace accidents. Using emotional contagion theory and the neural model of emotion and cognition, we tested the proposition that higher contagion of anger (i.e., a negative emotion accompanied by dysfunctional cognition) would be associated with greater cognitive failures, whereas higher contagion of joy (i.e., a positive emotion accompanied by pleasant information processing, attention and positive cognition) would be associated with fewer cognitive failures. In turn, cognitive failures were predicted to be related to higher rates of subsequent workplace accidents. Using a two-wave lagged design, anonymous survey data collected from N = 390 working adults in the U.S. supported the hypothesized mediation model. Specifically, emotional contagion of anger positively predicted cognitive failures, whereas emotional contagion of joy negatively predicted cognitive failures. Furthermore, cognitive failures positively predicted experienced accidents and fully mediated the relationship between contagion of joy/anger and experienced accidents. These findings suggest that lapses in cognitive functioning may be prevented by positive emotions (and enhanced by negative emotions) that employees absorb during social interactions at work and represent a more proximal source of accidents in comparison to emotions. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed in light of the globally rising rates of workplace accidents and related costs for safety.

Why do farm accidents persist? Normalising danger on the farm within the farm family

In the western world, farming is the most dangerous occupation with the highest rates of accidents and fatalities. Farming remains largely a family business and most accidents happen to family members. Why do safety campaigns have such limited success and why do farm families bring this terrible grief on themselves? This article argues that farm accidents are a persistent social pattern requiring analysis of how families are socialised to interact with the farming space. Based on qualitative data gathered for a Scottish study, it is argued that within farm families there is a socialisation and normalisation of danger. Accidents are to be expected. Two key arguments are advanced. First, danger is normalised and children are socialised to undertake risky behaviour. Second, it is suggested that when women do take up farming, they consciously undertake dangerous farming activities to prove that they are 'authentic' farmers. No previous research has considered women's approach to danger, and the existing literature suggests women are more safety conscious. This is not supported by our findings. We argue that farm accidents and fatalities are a persistent social problem because family members socialise each other to accept danger as the norm.

Urban Waste Collectors in Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Their Perceptions of Occupational Health Risk

Frequent contact with hazardous materials makes waste collection a potentially unhealthy activity. This article assesses the perception of waste management workers regarding work-related accidents in domestic and health service contexts in Brazil. Six focus groups were performed between June 2014 and August 2015. The aims of this study were to apprehend different aspects of the participants' health, workers' experiences of work-related accidents and perception of risks. Cuts and puncture injuries were reported most frequently in the line of work and were often considered as irrelevant. Immunization against hepatitis B was not common among all workers, which increases the risk of infection for those individuals. Finally, it is considered urgent to consolidate an inclusive space in which workers can have discussions on their health.

The effect of organizational justice as perceived by occupational drivers on traffic accidents: Mediating effects of job satisfaction

INTRODUCTION

Considerable research supports a positive association between the safety climate (which is a direct organizational factor) and safety performance (such as safe driving). However, indirect organizational variables that influence safe driving have gone largely unexplored. This study contributes to safety research by examining the relationship between organizational justice, which is a distal organizational factor, and traffic accidents and the mediating role of job satisfaction.

METHOD

233 occupational drivers employed by taxi and bus companies in South Korea participated in the study. Regression analysis was conducted using police records on participants' on-the-job traffic accidents.

RESULTS

The analysis shows that the mediation model is statistically significant. That is, drivers with a lower level of perceived organizational justice showed a higher frequency of traffic accidents, and the mediating effect of job satisfaction was also significant. Based on the results, implications and limitations are discussed. Practical applications: The findings demonstrate that in order to decrease traffic accidents, transportation companies would benefit by examining distal factors such as organizational justice. This approach suggests that the conventional framework for safety management should be broadened to include aspects of the entire organization.

Employee safety single vs. dual priorities: When is the rate of work-related driving accidents lower?

Applying both occupational safety and ambidexterity theories, we investigate which situation in organizations leads to a lower number of work-related road accidents: a single-priority situation focused on road safety, or a dual-priority situation in which both road safety and customer service are priorities. Occupational safety theory puts forward an 'either-or' approach in which employee safety must be the first priority, above and beyond all others. In contrast, the ambidexterity theory's 'both-and' approach suggests a simultaneous coexistence of priorities. Results from forty-three units in three organizations that make intensive use of work-related driving and aim to deliver good customer service are described. The results suggest that when the level of customer service priority was low, an increase in the level of road safety priority significantly decreased the number of road accidents. However, when the level of customer service priority was high, an increase in the level of road safety priority was not associated with less road accidents. The results show that work-related road accidents would be lower in a safety-first, single-priority situation compared to a dual-priority situation encompassing both road safety and customer service. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results.

Evaluation of toolbox safety training in construction: The impact of narratives

BACKGROUND

Construction is a dangerous industry with a large number of small businesses. Because they require minimal resources to deliver, toolbox talks may be an ideal training format for small construction contractors.

METHODS

Eight toolbox talks were developed, each with two versions. One version of each toolbox talk was standard and one version included a narrative and discussion questions. Participants were randomly assigned to receive the standard or the narrative version. Pre- and post-intervention surveys measured demographics, workplace safety climate, and knowledge. The post-intervention survey also measured training impact.

RESULTS

Including narratives with discussion questions significantly increased knowledge gain and led to increased training impact. Less experienced workers were more likely to gain knowledge and training impact compared to more experienced workers. There were no significant changes in workplace safety climate.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that including a narrative and discussion questions increases toolbox talk effectiveness.

Putting into practice error management theory: Unlearning and learning to manage action errors in construction

Error management theory is drawn upon to examine how a project-based organization, which took the form of a program alliance, was able to change its established error prevention mindset to one that enacted a learning mindfulness that provided an avenue to curtail its action errors. The program alliance was required to unlearn its existing routines and beliefs to accommodate the practices required to embrace error management. As a result of establishing an error management culture the program alliance was able to create a collective mindfulness that nurtured learning and supported innovation. The findings provide a much-needed context to demonstrate the relevance of error management theory to effectively address rework and safety problems in construction projects. The robust theoretical underpinning that is grounded in practice and presented in this paper provides a mechanism to engender learning from errors, which can be utilized by construction organizations to improve the productivity and performance of their projects.

The Influence of Supportive and Ethical Work Environments on Work-Related Accidents, Injuries, and Serious Psychological Distress among Hospital Nurses

The healthcare industry in Japan has experienced many cases of work-related injuries, accidents, and workers' compensation claims because of mental illness. This study examined the influence of supportive and ethical work environments on work-related accidents, injuries, and serious psychological distress among hospital nurses. Self-reported questionnaires were distributed to nurses (n = 1114) from 11 hospitals. Valid responses (n = 822, 93% women, mean age = 38.49 ± 10.09 years) were used for analyses. The questionnaire included items addressing basic attributes, work and organizational characteristics, social capital and ethical climate at the workplace, psychological distress, and experience of work-related accidents or injuries in the last half year. The final model of a multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that those who work less than 4 h of overtime per week (OR = 0.313), those who work on days off more than once per month (OR = 0.424), and an exclusive workplace climate (OR = 1.314) were significantly associated with work-related accidents or injuries. Additionally, an exclusive workplace climate (OR = 1.696) elevated the risk of serious psychological distress. To prevent work-related compensation cases, which are caused by these variables, strengthening hospitals' occupational health and safety is necessary.

Ending on a positive: Examining the role of safety leadership decisions, behaviours and actions in a safety critical situation

Safety leadership is an important factor in supporting safe performance in the workplace. The present case study examined the role of safety leadership during the Bingham Canyon Mine high-wall failure, a significant mining incident in which no fatalities or injuries were incurred. The Critical Decision Method (CDM) was used in conjunction with a self-reporting approach to examine safety leadership in terms of decisions, behaviours and actions that contributed to the incidents' safe outcome. Mapping the analysis onto Rasmussen's Risk Management Framework (Rasmussen, 1997), the findings demonstrate clear links between safety leadership decisions, and emergent behaviours and actions across the work system. Communication and engagement based decisions featured most prominently, and were linked to different leadership practices across the work system. Further, a core sub-set of CDM decision elements were linked to the open flow and exchange of information across the work system, which was critical to supporting the safe outcome. The findings provide practical implications for the development of safety leadership capability to support safety within the mining industry.

Needle-Stick Injuries in the National Health Service: A Culture of Silence

Injury by contaminated sharp instruments and needles constitutes a major occupational hazard for healthcare workers. In a confidential survey at a district general hospital, 300 healthcare professionals were asked about their personal experience of needle-stick injury and their attitudes to reporting. 279 individuals responded, of whom 38% had experienced at least one needle-stick (mean 1.8) in the past year and 74% had sustained such an injury during their careers (mean 3.0). Although 80% of respondents were aware that such incidents should be notified, only 51% of those affected had reported all needle-stick injuries. Doctors were less likely to report than nurses, despite a higher liability to injury. This survey adds to evidence of a culture of silence pertaining to needle-stick injuries. The consequent risks to health, and the ethical and financial implications, remain uncertain.

[Work accidents associated with the discouragement of SERUMS physicians to work in the primary care services of Lima, Peru]

BACKGROUND

Employee retention is an important issue, because professionals are required in primary care services (PCS). The objective was to determine whether accidents were associated with the discouragement of physicians to work in PCS in Lima, Peru.

METHODS

Analytical cross-sectional study of secondary data from a database generated from a survey of physicians who performed his Rural and Urban Health Care Service (Servicio Rural y Urbano-Marginal en Salud: SERUMS). We only included physicians who said at the beginning of their SERUMS that they could work in PCS in Lima. Those who completed their service and reported that they no longer wished to work in Lima were defined as change of intention to work in PCS. This was associated with having a work accident and was adjusted with other variables.

RESULTS

Out of 124 physicians, 63% (78) were men. Median age was 26 years (interquartile range: 25-27 years). After they completed their SERUMS, 12% (15) said they changed their mind and that they wished to work in Lima. In the multivariate analysis, having had an accident diminished the frequency of changing their mind of working in the PCS (aPR: 0.28, 95% CI: 0.14-0.54, p < 0.001), adjusted for eight variables.

CONCLUSIONS

A previous study found that work accidents decreased the frequency outside Lima, but our study states the opposite, probably because of the perception that a job in the capital would allow them to be closer to services; to be cared for in case of any emergency.

Incident Reporting by Health-Care Workers in Noninstitutional Care Settings

Patient-perpetrated violence and aggression toward health-care workers, specifically in noninstitutional health-care settings, cause concerns for both health-care providers and the clients whom they serve. Consequentially, this presents a public affairs problem for the entire health-care system, which the current research has failed to adequately address. While the literature overwhelmingly supports the assertion that accurate incident reporting is critical to fully understanding patient violence and aggression toward health-care providers, there is limited research examining provider decision making related to reporting incidents of patient violence and aggression targeted toward the provider. There is an even greater paucity of research specifically examining this issue in noninstitutional health-care settings. It is therefore the objective of this review to examine this phenomenon across disciplines and service settings in order to offer a comprehensive review of incident reporting and to examine rationales for providers reporting or failing to report instances of patient violence and aggression toward health-care providers.

Injunctive safety norms, young worker risk-taking behaviors, and workplace injuries

Injunctive safety norms (ISNs) refer to perceptions of others' expectations of one's safety-related conduct. Drawing on a sample of Canadian young workers (n=11,986;M age=17.90years; 55% males), we study the relationships among four sources of non-work-related (i.e., parents, siblings, friends, teachers), two sources of work-related (i.e., supervisors, co-workers) ISNs, young workers' self-reported work-related risk-taking behaviors, and workplace injuries. Structural equation modeling suggests that ISNs from parents, supervisors, and co-workers were related to less frequent work-related risk-taking behaviors, and with fewer workplace injuries via less frequent work-related risk-taking behaviors. In addition, ISNs from supervisors were directly associated with fewer workplace injuries. In contrast, ISNs from teachers and siblings were not associated with work-related risk-taking behaviors, but ISNs from siblings were associated with fewer work injuries. Finally, ISNs from friends were associated with more frequent work-related risk-taking and more frequent work injuries via more frequent work-related risk-taking. This study draws attention to the relative roles of non-work sources of social influence and provides some evidence of how ISNs might be related to young workers' work-related risk-taking behaviors and their workplace injuries. It also contributes to practice by suggesting specific interventions that parents, supervisors, and co-workers could undertake to reduce young workers' work-related risk-taking and workplace injuries, namely encouraging youth to be safe at work.

Accident Locus of Control and Risk Taking among Forestry and Construction Workers

228 forestry and 45 construction workers completed the Accident Locus of Control scale which is a modified version of the Health Locus of Control inventory. The forestry workers scored as having a more external locus of control than the construction workers. In both professional groups the subjects with higher scores on external locus of control tended to take more risks than the subjects with higher scores on internal locus of control. The results support a dual-dimensional view of control rather than a unidimensional view.

Sorting Through the Spheres of Influence: Using Modified Pile Sorting to Describe Who Influences Dairy Farmers' Decision-Making About Safety

OBJECTIVES

The primary goal of this study was to describe the mutually perceived influence of bankers and insurers on their agricultural clients' decision-making regarding health and safety.

METHODS

Semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 dairy farmers, 11 agricultural bankers, and 10 agricultural insurers from central Wisconsin. Three of the interview questions involved pile sorting. Pile sorting included 5-point Likert-like scales to help participants sort through 32 index cards. Each card represented an individual or group that was thought to possibly affect farmers' decision-making, both generally and about health and safety. Results (photographs of piles of cards quantified into spread sheets, fieldnotes, and interview transcripts) were analyzed with SAS and NVivo.

RESULTS

All three groups expressed moderate-to-strong positive opinions about involving agricultural bankers (x2(2) = 2.8155, p = 0.2695), although bankers qualitatively expressed apprehension due to regulations on the industry. Insurance agents received more positive support, particularly from bankers but also from dairy farmers themselves, and expressed more confidence in being involved in designing and implementing a farm safety program.

CONCLUSION

Agricultural bankers and insurers can influence individual farmer's decision-making about health and safety. Both are believed to be good purveyors of safety programs and knowledge, especially when leveraging financial incentives. Insurance agents are thought to be more critical in the design of safety programs. Insurers and bankers being financially tied to safety programs may prove both positive and negative, as farmers may be skeptical about the intention of the incentives, making messaging critical.

Using the Socio-Ecological Model to Frame Agricultural Safety and Health Interventions

The Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) is a conceptual framework depicting spheres of influence over human behavior that has been applied in public health settings for nearly five decades. Core principles of all variations of the SEM are the multiple influences over an individual's behaviors, the interactions of those influences, and the multilevel approaches that can be applied to interventions intended to modify behaviors. A project team modified the standard SEM to address interventions for protecting children from agricultural disease and injury. The modified SEM placed the "child in the farm environment" at the core with five interrelated levels (spheres) of influence over the child. This framework provides guidance on how a multifaceted, multilevel intervention can maximize the potential for impact on behaviors and decisions made by parents/adults responsible for the safety of children on farms. An example of how this model could work to safeguard youth operating tractors is provided.

Use of Rest Breaks and Accidents by Professional Drivers

This study examined the effect of rest breaks on traffic accidents by 720 randomly selected professional drivers who completed a postal questionnaire. Drivers involved in an accident preferred to enjoy their breaks at rest places meant for professional drivers, whereas accident-free drivers chose more freely the timing of their breaks during driving.

Impact of the number of painful stimuli on life satisfaction among Korean industrial accident workers completing convalescence: dual mediating effects of self-esteem and sleeping time

This study examined the impact of the number of painful stimuli on life satisfaction among workers who experienced an industrial accident and investigated how self-esteem and sleeping time affected life satisfaction. The Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service conducted the first nationwide panel survey on occupational health and safety insurance in 2013-2014 through a stratified systematic sampling on 2,000 industrial accident workers who completed convalescence. Based on the dataset, our study analyzed 1,832 workers experiencing an industrial accident after excluding 168 disease patients. For the research model analysis, a four-stage hierarchical regression analysis technique was applied using the SPSS regression analysis Macro program of PROCESS Procedure. To test mediated indirect effects of the self-esteem and sleeping time, the bootstrapping technique was applied. Life satisfaction, self-esteem and sleeping time decreased as the number of painful stimuli increased. Life satisfaction decreased as self-esteem and sleeping time decreased. On balance, the partial mediation model confirmed that self-esteem and sleeping time both mediate the impact of the number of painful stimuli on life satisfaction.

Relationships between Five Factor Personality Variables, Workplace Accidents, and Self-Efficacy

Past research has examined the relationships between personality variables and workplace accidents; however, few studies have examined these relationships using the Five Factor Model of personality and trait-state relationships have not been examined in this context. The present study was undertaken to examine the relationships between personality characteristics based on the Five Factor Model, workplace accidents, and self-efficacy. To examine these relationships, personality, workplace accident, and self-efficacy data were collected from 202 undergraduate volunteers (134 women and 68 men) at a large midwestern urban university. The mean age of participants was 20.9 yr. ( SD = 5.0). The results indicated that scores on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were significantly correlated with workplace accidents as were the self-efficacy variables. Neuroticism and Agreeableness were significantly related to self-efficacy.

Teacher ratings of resilience and peer relationships of preschoolers whose fathers died unexpectedly

This study endeavors to compare resilience and peer relationships of children who lost their fathers in a major mining accident in Soma with those who did not. Teachers rated 51 preschoolers whose fathers died, and 53 preschoolers whose fathers were alive. On the negative side, bereaved children had lower resilience and higher exclusion; on the positive side, bereaved children had lower peer victimization and higher prosocial behavior. Death of fathers is associated with lower resilience and more exclusion among young children, but others treat them better as well.

Course of Depressive Symptoms Following a Workplace Injury: A 12-Month Follow-Up Update

Introduction To estimate the prevalence, incidence and course of depressive symptoms, their relationship with return-to-work, and prevalence of depression diagnosis/treatment 12 months following a lost-time workplace musculoskeletal injury. Methods In a prospective cohort study, 332 workers' compensation claimants with a back or upper extremity musculoskeletal disorder completed interviews at 1, 6 and 12 months post-injury. Participants self-reported they had not received a depression diagnosis 1 year pre-injury. Cutoff of 16 on the CES-D defined a high level of depressive symptoms. Self-reported data on depression diagnosis and treatment and work status since injury were collected. Results Cumulative incidence of high depressive symptom levels over 12 months was 50.3 % (95 % CI 44.9-55.7 %). At 12 months, 24.7 % (95 % CI 20.1-29.3 %) of workers exhibited high levels. Over 12 months, 49.7 % (95 % CI 44.3-55.1 %) had low levels at all 3 interviews, 14.5 % (95 % CI 10.7-18.2 %) had persistently high levels, and 25.6 % (95 % CI 20.9-30.3 %) demonstrated improvements. Among workers with low baseline levels, incidence of high levels at 12 months was 6.0 % (95 % CI 2.7-9.3 %). For workers with high baseline levels, 36.1 % (95 % CI 27.9-44.3 %) exhibited persistent high symptoms at 6 and 12 months, while 38.4 % (95 % CI 30.1-46.6 %) experienced low levels at 6 and 12 months. Problematic RTW outcomes were common among workers with a poor depressive symptom course. Among workers with persistent high symptoms, 18.8 % (95 % CI 7.7-29.8 %) self-reported receiving a depression diagnosis by 12 months and 29.2 % (95 % CI 16.3-42.0 %) were receiving treatment at 12 months. Conclusions Depressive symptoms are common in the first year following a lost-time musculoskeletal injury and a poor depressive symptom course is associated with problematic RTW outcomes 12 months post-injury. While symptoms appear to improve over time, the first 6 months appear to be important in establishing future symptom levels and may represent a window of opportunity for early screening.

Using Immersive Virtual Reality to Reduce Work Accidents in Developing Countries

Thousands of people die or are injured in work accidents every year. Although the lack of safety equipment is one of the causes, especially in developing countries, behavioral issues caused by psychosocial factors are also to blame. This article introduces the use of immersive VR simulators to preventively reduce accidents in the workplace by detecting behavioral patterns that may lead to an increased predisposition to risk exposure. The system simulates day-to-day situations, analyzes user reactions, and classifies the behaviors according to four psychosocial groups. The results of a user study support the effectiveness of this approach.

The Perceived Socioeconomic Status Is an Important Factor of Health Recovery for Victims of Occupational Accidents in Korea

We aimed to examine whether there is a correlation between the health recovery of industrial accident victims and their perceived socioeconomic status. Data were obtained from the first Panel Study of Worker's Compensation Insurance, which included 2,000 participants. We performed multivariate regression analysis and determined the odds ratios for participants with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status and for those with a subjectively lower middle socioeconomic status using 95% confidence intervals. An additional multivariate regression analysis yielded the odds ratios for participants with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status and those with a subjectively upper middle socioeconomic class using 95% confidence intervals. Of all participants, 299 reported a full recovery, whereas 1,701 did not. We examined the odds ratio (95% confidence intervals) for participants' health recovery according to their subjective socioeconomic status while controlling for sex, age, education, tobacco use, alcohol use, subjective state of health prior to the accident, chronic disease, employment duration, recovery period, accident type, disability status, disability rating, and economic participation. The odds of recovery in participants with a subjectively lower middle socioeconomic status were 1.707 times greater (1.264-2.305) than that of those with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status. Similarly, the odds of recovery in participants with a subjectively upper middle socioeconomic status were 3.124 times greater (1.795-5.438) than that of those with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status. Our findings indicate that participants' perceived socioeconomic disparities extend to disparities in their health status. The reinforcement of welfare measures is greatly needed to temper these disparities.

Bereaved families and the coronial response to traumatic workplace fatalities: Organizational perspectives

Work remains a significant source of illness, injury, and death in developed countries. In Australia, for example, over 2,000 people die from work-related causes each year, with heavy social, economic, and personal costs (Safe Work Australia, 2013a ). Most die as a result of work-related disease. However, many die from trauma. In 2012, 223 workers were fatally injured in Australia and in the United States the figure was 4,383 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014 ; Safe Work Australia, 2013b ). Apart from the immediate tragedy of each worker's death, these deaths affect the victim's immediate family, wider family, friends, and co-workers. It has been estimated that, on average, every death has an impact on at least 20 other people (Dyregrov, Nordanger, & Dyregrov, 2003 ), especially when the deceased had several families, which is an increasingly common phenomenon (OECD, 2014 ). Little is known, however, about how regulatory responses following a traumatic workplace fatality meet the needs of surviving families. With a focus on the coronial investigation, this article provides information about the regulatory responses to a traumatic workplace fatality and examines how various organizations involved in the coronial process following the death viewed its ability to accommodate the needs and wishes of surviving families.

Development of a Comprehensive Programme to Prevent and Reduce the Negative Impact of Railway Fatalities, Injuries and Close Calls on Railway Employees

AIM

This article presents a strategy to prevent trauma, support and care for railway personnel who experience critical incidents (CI) on the job, usually fatalities by accident or suicide.

METHOD

We reviewed all publications on CI management, support and care practices in the railway industry, as well as practices in place in Canada (unpublished protocols). Semi structured interviews were conducted with 40 train engineers and conductors involved in CIs and the content was coded and analysed quantitatively.

RESULTS

Employees' satisfaction with the help received after the incident varies according to the behaviour of the local manager, company officers and police, the level of compliance with existing company protocols to help them, the presence of unmet expectations for support and care, their perceived competency of clinicians they consulted and the level of trust toward their employers.

CONCLUSION

On the basis of the interview results, the review of existing railway practices and discussions with railway stakeholders, a model protocol was developed for a comprehensive workplace prevention, support and care protocol to reduce the negative impact of railway critical incidents on employees. This protocol includes preventive actions before traumatic events occur, immediate responses at the site of incident, interventions within the first few days after the incident and longer term support and interventions provided by the company and by outsourced experts.

Psychological Trauma in the Workplace: Variation of Incident Severity among Industry Settings and between Recurring vs Isolated Incidents

BACKGROUND

Psychologically traumatic workplace events (known as critical incidents) occur within various work environments, with workgroups in certain industries vulnerable to multiple incidents. With the increasing prevalence of incidents in the USA, incident response is a growing practice area within occupational medicine, industrial psychology, occupational social work and other occupational health professions.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze a measure of incident severity based on level of disruption to the workplace and explore whether incident severity varied among different industry settings or between workgroups experiencing multiple vs single traumatic incidents.

METHODS

Administrative data mining was employed to examine practice data from a workplace trauma response unit in the USA. Bivariate analyses were conducted to test whether scores from an instrument measuring incident severity level varied among industry settings or between workgroups impacted by multiple vs isolated events.

RESULTS

Incident severity level differed among various industry settings. Banks, retail stores and fast food restaurants accounted for the most severe incidents, while industrial and manufacturing sites reported less severe incidents. Workgroups experiencing multiple incidents reported more severe incidents than workgroups experiencing a single incident.

CONCLUSION

Occupational health practitioners should be alert to industry differences in several areas: pre-incident resiliency training, the content of business recovery plans, assessing worker characteristics, strategies to assist continuous operations and assisting workgroups impacted by multiple or severe incidents.

The Relationship Between Workers’ Safety Culture and Accidents, Near Accidents and Health Problems

One of the dimensions treated as part of a company's safety culture or climate is workers' attitudes towards risk and safety. In the present study these personal aspects are defined as workers' safety culture, which is understood as a way of acting focused on life and taking care of one's health. A questionnaire on safety culture was filled out by 200 employees of a metallurgical enterprise. Factor analysis was used to determine empirical scales of the questionnaire, whereas variance analysis was used to test hypotheses. The results confirmed the hypotheses that people who experienced accidents, dangerous situations, and--to a lesser extent--health problems had a lower level of safety culture. Nevertheless not all of the scales determined during factor analysis turned out to be significant as far as all kinds of those undesirable situations are concerned. Proposals for future studies are formulated in the conclusion.

Behavior-based safety on construction sites: a case study

This work presents the results of a case study and describes an important area within the field of construction safety management, namely behavior-based safety (BBS). This paper adopts and develops a management approach for safety improvements in construction site environments. A rigorous behavioral safety system and its intervention program was implemented and deployed on target construction sites. After taking a few weeks of safety behavior measurements, the project management team implemented the designed intervention and measurements were taken. Goal-setting sessions were arranged on-site with workers' participation to set realistic and attainable targets of performance. Safety performance measurements continued and the levels of performance and the targets were presented on feedback charts. Supervisors were asked to give workers recognition and praise when they acted safely or improved critical behaviors. Observers were requested to have discussions with workers, visit the site, distribute training materials to workers, and provide feedback to crews and display charts. They were required to talk to operatives in the presence of line managers. It was necessary to develop awareness and understanding of what was being measured. In the process, operatives learned how to act safely when conducting site tasks using the designed checklists. Current weekly scores were discussed in the weekly safety meetings and other operational site meetings with emphasis on how to achieve set targets. The reliability of the safety performance measures taken by the company's observers was monitored. A clear increase in safety performance level was achieved across all categories: personal protective equipment; housekeeping; access to heights; plant and equipment, and scaffolding. The research reveals that scores of safety performance at one project improved from 86% (at the end of 3rd week) to 92.9% during the 9th week. The results of intervention demonstrated large decreases in unsafe behaviors and significant increases in safe behaviors. The results of this case study showed that an approach based on goal setting, feedback, and an effective measure of safety behavior if properly applied by committed management, can improve safety performance significantly in construction site environments. The results proved that the BBS management technique can be applied to any country's culture, showing that it would be a good approach for improving the safety of front-line workers and that it has industry wide application for ongoing construction projects.

Validation of selected temperament and personality questionnaires for diagnosing drivers' aptitude for safe driving. A Polish study

This paper presents the results of a study aimed at validating psychological questionnaires evaluating temperamental and personality features. It discusses their usefulness in diagnosing drivers' aptitude for safe driving and working as professional drivers. Three psychological questionnaires were validated: the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour - Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire - Revised and Short Scale (EPQ-R (S)) and the Impulsiveness Questionnaire (IVE). Three groups of drivers (n=246) aged 19-75 participated in the study. Group I (professional drivers; n=96) and Group II (nonprofessional drivers; n=75) had never been involved in road crashes, whereas Group III (nonprofessional drivers; n=75) were offenders involved in fatal injury road crashes. Criterion-related validity, Cronbach's alpha and Guttman split-half reliability coefficient were in assessing the psychometric properties of the questionnaires. There were some significant differences between Groups II and III for most traits. However, contrary to expectations, higher Emotional Reactivity, Perseveration and lower Endurance as well as higher Neuroticism, Impulsiveness and Venturesomeness were determined for Group II than for Group III. Additionally, the temperament and personality profile of Group II turned out to be less fitted to the profile of safe drivers than that of Group III, whose profile was actually similar to that of Group I. This seems to result from a high tendency for a positive self-presentation among Group I and Group III (a significantly higher result on the Lie scale in comparison with Group II). The results suggest that if psychological tests are to decide on whether a person may be a professional driver or may drive vehicles, the three questionnaires (FCB-TI, EPQ-R(S) and IVE) do not provide a valid diagnosis of professional drivers' aptitude because of drivers' high tendency for positive self-presentation. However, they can be used in job counselling and in screening high-risk drivers.

Configuring retroreflective markings to enhance the night-time conspicuity of road workers

This study investigated whether the night-time conspicuity of road workers can be enhanced by positioning retroreflective strips on the moveable joints in patterns that convey varying degrees of biological motion. Participants were 24 visually normal adults (12 young M=26.8 years; 12 older M=72.9 years). Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and glare sensitivity were recorded for each participant. Experimenters acting as road workers walked in place on a closed road circuit within simulated road work sites, facing either the oncoming driver or the roadway (presenting sideways to the driver) and wearing one of four clothing conditions: (i) standard road worker vest; (ii) standard vest plus thigh-mounted retroreflective strips; (iii) standard vest plus retroreflective strips on ankles and knees; (iv) standard vest plus retroreflective strips positioned on the extremities in a configuration that conveyed biological motion ("biomotion"). As they drove along the closed road participants were instructed to press a button to indicate when they first recognized that a road worker was present. The results demonstrated that regardless of the direction of walking, road workers wearing biomotion clothing were recognized at significantly (p<0.05) longer distances (3×), relative to the standard vest alone. Response distances were significantly shorter for the older drivers. Contrast sensitivity was a better predictor of the ability to recognize road workers than was visual acuity or glare sensitivity. We conclude that adding retroreflective strips in the biomotion configuration can significantly improve road worker conspicuity regardless of the road worker's orientation and the age of the driver.

Work-related injury underreporting among young workers: prevalence, gender differences, and explanations for underreporting

INTRODUCTION

Although notifying an employer of a lost-time work-related injury is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions, employees frequently do not report such injuries.

METHOD

Based on data from 21,345 young part-time Canadian workers (55% male), we found that 21% of respondents had experienced at least one lost-time injury, with about half reporting the injury to an employer and a doctor.

RESULTS

Respondents provided 10 reasons for avoiding reporting lost-time injuries, with perceived low severity of the injury, negative reactions of others, and ambiguity about whether work caused the injury as the most common ones. Additional analysis of these categories revealed that young males cited concern about their self-identity as a reason for not reporting an injury more often than young females did. We discuss the findings in terms of implications for management practice (i.e., educating young workers about accurate injury reporting) and public policy.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Targeted campaigns should be developed for young workers, especially young male workers, who are less likely to report injuries than young female workers, to understand the importance of and to encourage injury reporting.

Sensitivity to social information, social referencing, and safety attitudes in a hazardous occupation

Social referencing, or seeking information cues from others, occurs when a worker must make sense of those aspects of work, like safety hazards, that are ambiguous. This is a central argument of Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT), a social referencing and job characteristics theory of work attitudes. Adapting SIPT to the understanding of safety perceptions and attitudes, this paper hypothesizes relationships between the worker's sensitivity to social information, the worker's social safety cognitions, and the worker's own safety attitudes. Findings from a field study of workers in a hazardous occupation, emergency care/firefighting, confirmed SIPT-predicted relationships among these factors: the worker's belief in management's willingness to provide a safe work environment, the degree of risk the worker associates with his or her job, the worker's concern about the frequency of exposure to hazards, and the worker's personal experiences with hazards. These findings also suggest that a social referencing and job characteristics perspective like SIPT provides a logical and useful theoretical framework for understanding workers' interpretations of safety conditions. This perspective also helps relate theories of safety attitudes to a broad set of theories of social information and organizational behavior.

Catastrophe model of the accident process, safety climate, and anxiety

This study aimed (a) to address the evidence for situational specificity in the connection between safety climate to occupational accidents, (b) to resolve similar issues between anxiety and accidents, (c) to expand and develop the concept of safety climate to include a wider range of organizational constructs, (d) to assess a cusp catastrophe model for occupational accidents where safety climate and anxiety are treated as bifurcation variables, and environ-mental hazards are asymmetry variables. Bifurcation, or trigger variables can have a positive or negative effect on outcomes, depending on the levels of asymmetry, or background variables. The participants were 1262 production employees of two steel manufacturing facilities who completed a survey that measured safety management, anxiety, subjective danger, dysregulation, stressors and hazards. Nonlinear regression analyses showed, for this industry, that the accident process was explained by a cusp catastrophe model in which safety management and anxiety were bifurcation variables, and hazards, age and experience were asymmetry variables. The accuracy of the cusp model (R2 = .72) exceeded that of the next best log-linear model (R2 = .08) composed from the same survey variables. The results are thought to generalize to any industry where serious injuries could occur, although situationally specific effects should be anticipated as well.

Identification of the human factors contributing to maintenance failures in a petroleum operation

OBJECTIVE

This research aimed to identify the most frequently occurring human factors contributing to maintenance-related failures within a petroleum industry organization. Commonality between failures will assist in understanding reliability in maintenance processes, thereby preventing accidents in high-hazard domains.

BACKGROUND

Methods exist for understanding the human factors contributing to accidents. Their application in a maintenance context mainly has been advanced in aviation and nuclear power. Maintenance in the petroleum industry provides a different context for investigating the role that human factors play in influencing outcomes. It is therefore worth investigating the contributing human factors to improve our understanding of both human factors in reliability and the factors specific to this domain.

METHOD

Detailed analyses were conducted of maintenance-related failures (N = 38) in a petroleum company using structured interviews with maintenance technicians. The interview structure was based on the Human Factor Investigation Tool (HFIT), which in turn was based on Rasmussen's model of human malfunction.

RESULTS

A mean of 9.5 factors per incident was identified across the cases investigated.The three most frequent human factors contributing to the maintenance failures were found to be assumption (79% of cases), design and maintenance (71%), and communication (66%).

CONCLUSION

HFIT proved to be a useful instrument for identifying the pattern of human factors that recurred most frequently in maintenance-related failures.

APPLICATION

The high frequency of failures attributed to assumptions and communication demonstrated the importance of problem-solving abilities and organizational communication in a domain where maintenance personnel have a high degree of autonomy and a wide geographical distribution.

[Clinical justification of medico-psychological care to the victims of technogenic accidents and catastrophes with prevalence of anxious and depressive symptoms of non-psychotic register]

In the article the clinical justification of medico-psychological care to the victims of technogenic accidents and catastrophes with prevalence of anxious and depressive symptoms of non-psychotic register is described. The necessity of differentiated approach is analyzed in accomplishing of psychotherapy of this contingent of patients taking into account the high level of anxiety, emotional stress, decreased mood, low levels of the quality of life in the remote period of strong stressful factor's action.

Improving safety culture through the health and safety organization: a case study

INTRODUCTION

International research indicates that internal health and safety organizations (HSO) and health and safety committees (HSC) do not have the intended impact on companies' safety performance. The aim of this case study at an industrial plant was to test whether the HSO can improve company safety culture by creating more and better safety-related interactions both within the HSO and between HSO members and the shop-floor.

METHODS

A quasi-experimental single case study design based on action research with both quantitative and qualitative measures was used.

INTERVENTION

Based on baseline mapping of safety culture and the efficiency of the HSO three developmental processes were started aimed at the HSC, the whole HSO, and the safety representatives, respectively.

RESULTS

Results at follow-up indicated a marked improvement in HSO performance, interaction patterns concerning safety, safety culture indicators, and a changed trend in injury rates. These improvements are interpreted as cultural change because an organizational double-loop learning process leading to modification of the basic assumptions could be identified.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The study provides evidence that the HSO can improve company safety culture by focusing on safety-related interactions.