RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A structural equation modelling approach examining the pathways between safety climate, behaviour performance and workplace slipping
JF Occupational and Environmental Medicine
JO Occup Environ Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 476
OP 481
DO 10.1136/oemed-2014-102496
VO 72
IS 7
A1 David I Swedler
A1 Santosh K Verma
A1 Yueng-Hsiang Huang
A1 David A Lombardi
A1 Wen-Ruey Chang
A1 Melayne Brennan
A1 Theodore K Courtney
YR 2015
UL http://oem.bmj.com/content/72/7/476.abstract
AB Objective Safety climate has previously been associated with increasing safe workplace behaviours and decreasing occupational injuries. This study seeks to understand the structural relationship between employees’ perceptions of safety climate, performing a safety behaviour (ie, wearing slip-resistant shoes) and risk of slipping in the setting of limited-service restaurants.Methods At baseline, we surveyed 349 employees at 30 restaurants for their perceptions of their safety training and management commitment to safety as well as demographic data. Safety performance was identified as wearing slip-resistant shoes, as measured by direct observation by the study team. We then prospectively collected participants’ hours worked and number of slips weekly for the next 12 weeks. Using a confirmatory factor analysis, we modelled safety climate as a higher order factor composed of previously identified training and management commitment factors.Results The 349 study participants experienced 1075 slips during the 12-week follow-up. Confirmatory factor analysis supported modelling safety climate as a higher order factor composed of safety training and management commitment. In a structural equation model, safety climate indirectly affected prospective risk of slipping through safety performance, but no direct relationship between safety climate and slips was evident.Conclusions Results suggest that safety climate can reduce workplace slips through performance of a safety behaviour as well as suggesting a potential causal mechanism through which safety climate can reduce workplace injuries. Safety climate can be modelled as a higher order factor composed of safety training and management commitment.