Reporting Near Misses Incidents

¶ … Supervisor Support and Risk Perception: Their Relationship with Unreported Injuries and near Misses" by Kristy J. Lauver and Scott Lester (2009)

A brief introduction of the article

In this review, Lauver and Lester (2009) provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature concerning workplace incidents and near-misses to identify opportunities for improvement. Suggesting that the organizational culture established by the supervisor plays a critical role in the reporting of incidents and near-misses, Lauver and Lester examine the research problem discussed further below.

A statement of the research problem

Although the best way to reduce accidents in the workplace is to prevent them from occurring in the first place, accidents do happen and Lauver and Lester emphasize the need for a timely and efficient near-miss and incident reporting program that tracks when, where, who, how and why in order to prevent the recurrence of these events in the future, a process that is facilitated by active supervisory support. This study was guided by the following hypotheses: H1: Positive employee perceptions of supervisor support for safety will be associated with a decrease in unreported injuries (injuries requiring doctor's attention, first-aid cases) and near misses;

H2: Employee perceptions of a higher injury risk factor in their work environment will be associated with an increase in unreported injuries (injuries requiring doctor's attention and first-aid cases) and near misses; and,

H3: Employee risk perceptions will have a mediating effect on the relationship between perceived supervisor support and unreported injuries (injuries requiring doctor's attention and first-aid cases) and near misses (pp. 327-328).

3.

A description of research procedures

To determine the relationship between supervisor support for an incident and near-miss reporting program, the supervisors' perception of risk and the numbers of incidents and near-misses that go unreported each year, the authors used a mixed methodology consisting of a critical review of the relevant literature to emphasize the fact that many incidents and near-misses in the workplace go unreported each year, and to emphasize the need for active supervisor involvement to ensure that the need and importance for reporting is communicated organization-wide together with a survey of 464 employees working in eight different organizations in the same Midwestern state. Most (70%) of the respondents were male, 20% reported female but 10% of the respondents did not report their gender. Ages of the respondents ranged from 18 to 70 years with a mean age of 39 years. More than half of the respondents (56%) had high school diplomas or GEDs and just under a third (32%) had an associates degree or higher. Most respondents were white (84%), with 1% each African-American, Asian, and Latino participating but 15% of the respondents not providing their ethnicity. The surveys were Likert-scaled, self-administered paper-and-pencil versions.

The authors grouped their findings into two categories of injuries: (a) the first level of injuries were those incidents that required attention from a physician, may have required time off from work thereafter and were OSHA reportable; and (b) first-aid injuries which required only superficial treatment and no time lost from work. The authors also grouped the remaining incidents without injuries into a near-miss category that included any incident where "an employee felt that they [sic] were in an unsafe situation due to circumstances, equipment, or their [sic] own actions which had a high probability of resulting in an injury, and only by good fortune did the employee remain uninjured" (Lauver & Lester, 2009, p. 328).

4.

Flaws in the procedural design

The authors concede that a limitation to their study was its cross-sectional design. According to Lauver and Lester, "All of the data in this study are cross-sectional. Although we ask respondents to answer questions about safety incidents in the previous year, these are retrospective accounts" (p. 328). In addition, the study's findings were delimited because all of the organizations surveyed were located in one Midwestern state.

5.

Analysis of the data

Using multiple linear regression, the authors analyzed the results of the survey and identified partial support for all three of their hypotheses, suggesting that the perception of supervisor interest and support for an incident and near-miss reporting program is related to the number of incidents and near-misses that go unreported, and conversely, to the number that do get reported. These findings have

6.

A description of how System Safety principles were used or could have been used in this research