Factors Affecting Workers' Willingness to Report Incidents in Chemical Plants

Lack of incident reporting culture has been pointed out as a potential risk factor across industries. Consequently, comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting the willingness to report (WTR) is necessary. However, our knowledge on the related studies are not enough to date and even most parts of the existing studies have focused on patient safety, which makes it difficult to universally apply the factors to all industries. Therefore, this study aimed to identify WTR factors in chemical plants and evaluate the influence degree of the factors. To do this, 45 candidate factors were summarized throughout the previous studies and surveying plant safety staff. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 614 all employees from 9 chemical plants which belong to one company, and finally 32 WTR factors were identified throughout 520 responses. Of these, 19 factors were consistent with the previous studies and 13 factors were newly identified. The most influential factor was 'Views on the necessity of incident reporting', and 'Reporting practice by outcome severity', 'Fear of vilification, conflicts, blame, or sanctions' were followed. This result not only suggests various WTR factors suitable for chemical plants, but also shows need to derive specific factors that are appropriate to each industry. An empirical study could be expected to increase incident reporting by using these factors and verify its effectiveness on injury rate.

화학 공장에서 근로자의 사건 보고 의지에 영향을 미치는 인자