Department of Community Health Systems, School of Nursing, University of California San Francisco, 2 Koret Way, Suite #N-505, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2023 Mar 24;23(1):558. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15487-0.
Accurate identification of work-related health problems is important to understand workplace safety issues and develop appropriate interventions. Although workers' reporting of work-related injuries or illnesses is the very first step of the reporting process, many workers may encounter challenges in reporting them to their management or workers' compensation (WC) programs. This systematic review aimed to identify the level of workers' underreporting of work-related injuries and illnesses and the contributing factors and reasons for underreporting among US workers.
This study searched PubMed (Medline), PsycINFO (ProQuest), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), EMBASE (Embase.com), and Social Science Citation Index (Web of Science) using search terms related to underreporting of work-related injury or illness.
Twenty studies (17 quantitative and three mixed methods studies) were identified. The studies investigated reporting to management (n = 12), WC programs (n = 6), multiple organizations (n = 1), and not specified (n = 1). The timeframe used to measure reporting prevalence varied from three months to entire careers of workers, with the most common timeframe of 12 months. This review indicated that 20-91% of workers did not report their injuries or illnesses to management or WC programs. From quantitative studies, contributing factors for injury or illness underreporting were categorized as follows: injury type and severity, sociodemographic factors (e.g., age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity), general health and functioning, worker's knowledge on reporting, job and employment characteristics (e.g., work hour, job tenure, work shift, type of occupation, and physical demand), psychosocial work environment (e.g., supervisor support, coworker support, and safety climate), and health care provider factors. From the review of qualitative studies, the reasons for underreporting included the following: fear or concern, cumbersome time and effort in the reporting process, lack of knowledge regarding reporting, perceptions of injuries as not severe or part of the job, and distrust of reporting consequences.
The review findings indicated that low wage earners, racial/ethnic minority workers, and workers who perceive a poor psychosocial work environment encounter more barriers to reporting a work-related injury or illness. This review also identified variations in the measurement of work-related injury reporting across studies and a lack of standardized measurement.
The review was registered in the PROSPERO, an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care (CRD42021284685).
准确识别与工作相关的健康问题对于了解工作场所安全问题和制定适当的干预措施非常重要。尽管工人报告与工作相关的伤害或疾病是报告过程的第一步，但许多工人在向管理层或工人赔偿（WC）计划报告时可能会遇到挑战。本系统评价旨在确定美国工人报告与工作相关的伤害和疾病的低报程度以及低报的原因和原因。
本研究使用与报告与工作相关的伤害或疾病低报相关的搜索词，在 PubMed（Medline）、PsycINFO（ProQuest）、CINAHL（EBSCOhost）、EMBASE（Embase.com）和社会科学引文索引（Web of Science）中进行了搜索。
确定了 20 项研究（17 项定量研究和 3 项混合方法研究）。这些研究调查了向管理层（n=12）、WC 计划（n=6）、多个组织（n=1）和未指定（n=1）报告的情况。用于衡量报告流行率的时间框架从三个月到工人的整个职业生涯不等，最常见的时间框架为 12 个月。本综述表明，20-91%的工人未向管理层或 WC 计划报告其伤害或疾病。从定量研究中，伤害或疾病低报的影响因素可分为以下几类：伤害类型和严重程度、社会人口因素（例如，年龄、性别、教育程度和种族/民族）、一般健康和功能、工人对报告的了解、工作和就业特征（例如，工作时间、工作年限、工作班次、职业类型和体力需求）、心理社会工作环境（例如，主管支持、同事支持和安全氛围）和医疗保健提供者因素。从定性研究的综述中，低报的原因包括：担心或担心、报告过程中时间和精力的繁琐、缺乏报告方面的知识、对伤害的认知不严重或属于工作的一部分、以及对报告后果的不信任。
审查结果表明，低工资工人、少数族裔工人和认为心理社会工作环境较差的工人在报告与工作相关的伤害或疾病时遇到更多障碍。本综述还发现，不同研究之间工作相关伤害报告的测量存在差异，缺乏标准化的测量。
该综述在 PROSPERO（一个健康和社会保健领域的前瞻性系统评价国际数据库）中进行了注册（CRD42021284685）。
