What are the links between psychosocial factors and safety in high-risk industries? A study to be posted soon systematically reviewed the evidence to answer this question.
This 2023 study evaluated 40 studies on the links between psychosocial factors, hazards and risks, and their interactions with safety behaviours (compliance and participation) and safety outputs (accidents, near misses etc.).
Key findings included:
· There is evidence of a link between the exposure to workplace psychosocial factors and safety outputs in high-risk industries
· Stronger links in the extant literature are found between psychosocial factors and safety behaviours (compliance and participation) than between psychosocial factors and safety outputs/events
· Job demand factors are “likely to trigger employees’ health-impairing mental/physical conditions that can constitute a precursor of unsafe behavior”
· Links were found between work-induced psychosocial states (typically in the form of stress or exhaustion) and safety outputs
They said overall, there is “some evidence of a link between the exposure to workplace psychosocial factors (i.e., in the form of job demands and resources) and ensuing employees’ safety violating (or supporting) behaviors in high-risk industries”.
They also explored the findings using the lens of Safety-I / II. In their view, much of the existing emphasis in this domain of research has been steeped in the negative frame (which they say is Safety-I thinking), and the field could benefit further from “a stronger focus on investigating which psychosocial states are most common when everything “goes right”.
That is, to turn around the attention from safety deteriorating- to safety promoting psychosocial states (i.e., Safety II thinking) so as to capture the complexity and variety of relationships between work-induced psychosocial states and safety” [* Although I disagree that the ‘negatives’ of psychosocial factors is Safety-I, I still agree with a greater focus on the positive frames and capabilities/resources to enhance psychosocial health].
Some of the tabulated data is in the images, but I’ve skipped heaps of data by necessity.
Authors: Derdowski, L. A., & Mathisen, G. E. (2023). Safety science, 157, 105948.
Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105948
SafetyInsights.org 
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