Effective Components of Behavioural Interventions Aiming to Reduce Injury within the Workplace: A Systematic Review

This may interest people – it systematically reviewed the evidence on the effectiveness of behavioural interventions in decreasing fatal and non-fatal injuries within high-risk industries.

NB.:

1) This included a pretty broad conceptualisation of behavioural programs, e.g. drug and alcohol testing, training;

2) I’m avoiding philosophical discussions/issues people may have with behavioural interventions; you’re free to discuss them, but my interest here is sharing research.

19 article met inclusion criteria.

Results:

·        “11 suggested that their reviewed interventions revealed some evidence of being effective in reducing injury/accident rates”

·        Seven articles “found that the interventions affected certain determinants, such as safety knowledge, health and safety behaviours, attitudes, efficacy, and beliefs”

·        One paper found no effect at all

·        Notably, “a significant portion of them had poor methodological quality and/or quantity”, and this is consistent with prior work, where they state “It has been previously stated that a large amount of evidence concerning the efficacy of occupational safety is of poor quality”

·        Despite this, they state that “it was found that certain components, such as multi-faceted interventions tailored to the target group, contribute to either reducing injury/accident rates or improving the specific aforementioned determinants”

·        Some interventions impacted injury/accident rates [**noting how unreliable they can be], other interventions affected determinants like behaviour, knowledge, attitudes, efficacy and beliefs, which may or may not have an impact on subsequent performance

·        Moreover, they state that “Based on the analysis presented in this paper, there seems to be no evident association between knowledge and injury/accident rates”, but this may be more due to the inadequate design and study quality

·        Further, “Research conducted in the previous century within the field of safety has demonstrated that incidents often arise because of a complex combination of factors” and “since human behaviour is highly dynamic and multifactorial in origin [56], it seems plausible that a multifaced approach was said to have effective qualities in the reviewed papers”

·        And some work “claimed that the most effective interventions they assessed were those that were tailored to the cultural or social components of the worker population. The tailored interventions also appeared to influence worker engagement”

·        Given the limitations in the evidence quality, they suggest better quality experimental/quasi-experimental designs, RCTs and longitudinal research

Ref: Bowdler, M., Steijn, W. M. P., & van der Beek, D. (2023). Effective components of behavioural interventions aiming to reduce injury within the workplace: a systematic review. Safety, 9(3), 46.

Study link: https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/9/3/46

My site with more reviews: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_this-may-interest-people-it-systematically-activity-7205691001082904576-b3wc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop