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The purpose of this study is to explore the determinants of needle stick injuries (NSIs) suffering in terms of occupational health and safety (OHS) coverage critically for health-care workers’ rights in Pakistan.

This is a qualitative study involving the designing of a questionnaire followed by the World Health Organization’s NSI prevention assessment tool and nationally published reports covering health-care workers’ OHS rights protection. A total of 17 public and private hospitals were surveyed with a two-stage sampling method. Descriptive and inferential statistics (one-way analysis of variance with multiple comparison tests) were applied and significant results were discussed (p = 0.05 & p = 0.01). The results were discussed critically in the context of the OHS rights of health-care workers.

Analysis revealed the following significant relationships: job type and safety behavior; age group of health-care workers and safety management; injection usage per day and safety behavior; past year’s needle sticks injuries cases with safety behavior and occupational exposure; work shift and work experience with safety knowledge, safety awareness and work experience with safety management. It was also found there is no specific OHS law in the country for health-care workers.

This study is limited in terms of sampling size and quantification of NSI burden among health-care workers.

Improved OHS management practices among health-care workers can control NSIs that ultimately ensure their workplace OHS rights. Health-care workers need OHS coverage in terms of awareness about potential workplace hazards and job training accordingly. Findings from extensive studies of a similar kind can give useful policy directions for workplace health management in health-care setup at the national level.

This study highlights the importance of OHS coverage for health-care workers in hospitals. It reports different determinants of NSIs suffering causing health-care worker’s rights violations at the workplace in Pakistan.

The study aims to investigate the impact of anxiety and depression (dimensions of mental health) on mineworkers' safety behaviors (safety compliance and safety participation) while examining the moderating role of safety climate on these relationships.

A quantitative research approach with an explanatory cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. A total of 274 purposively selected mineworkers participated in the study. Responses were obtained from participants through a structured questionnaire which was analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling.

Anxiety had a significant negative effect on safety compliance but not participation. However, depression was found to have a significant negative effect on both mineworkers' safety compliance and participation behaviors. The findings of the study also show that safety climate moderates the relationships between the dimensions of mental health and mineworkers' safety behavior except for the relationship between anxiety and mineworkers' safety participation behavior.

The study offers an account of the negative effect of mental health on mineworkers' safety behavior whiles highlighting that safety climate is an important construct to mitigate the negative effects of mental illness on the safety behaviors of mineworkers.

Safety climate plays an important role in the high-risk construction industry. Advances have been made in the understanding of construction safety climate in terms of four interrelated themes, specifically, its definition, measurement, antecedents and consequences. However, knowledge remains fragmented as the studies are scattered, and a systematic review covering these four themes is lacking. To address this research gap, this study aims to perform a systematic literature review of construction safety climate literature regarding the four themes.

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol guidelines, 178 eligible articles were obtained. This study provided thematic analysis of the 178 papers to identify what is known and what is not yet fully known regarding the four themes of construction safety climate. This study also conducted a descriptive analysis to identify the influential scholars, keywords, theories and research methods used by the literature, and finally presented an integrative framework directing future research.

The literature has not reached a consensus on the definition and measurement of construction safety climate. While it has identified the impact of safety climate on both behavioral and accident consequences, it has paid less attention to the antecedents and their underlying mechanisms regarding safety climate. Fang D. and Lingard H. are identified as the most influential authors in this field. “Questionnaire” and “safety behavior” are the keywords most closely related to safety climate. Unfortunately, the existing evidence for the causal relationships between safety climate and its antecedents and consequences is weak, as many studies lack clear theoretical substance, use a concurrent research design and focus only on individual-level climate perceptions. Finally, to support the development of construction safety climate around the four themes, potential research directions and research methods supporting them are illustrated.

This review makes contributions by integrating existing construction studies covering its definition, measurement, antecedents and consequences. This review also makes contributions to specific themes: no review exists on the antecedents of construction safety climate, and this review fills that gap; with regard to consequences, the existing reviews focus either on safety outcomes or safety behavior, but this review included both of them and further elaborated the different theories underpinning the relationships between safety climate and them. It is hoped that this systematic review will be helpful to the research community toward developing a nomologic network and promoting knowledge integration with respect to construction safety climate.

In the absence of previous work, this study investigates how the psychological contract (PC) influences the safety performance of construction workers in China.

The literature is first consulted to obtain a set of PC and safety performance measures that fits the specific situation of construction workers, which is then moderated by five construction experts. A questionnaire survey of 206 workers from 4 different construction sites is followed by a descriptive statistical analysis of the nature of the PC and level of the safety performance of the respondents. Finally, a regression analysis is used to ascertain the level of influence of the PS, and an analysis is made of the influence of PC on safety performance.

A set of PC and safety performance measures is identified that fits in the construction workers' specific situation. The PC of the respondents is found to be intact and well-performed, and their safety performance is maintained at a high level. Safety performance is highly influenced by the state of the PC, with the three dimensions of safety performance (safety result, safety compliance and safety participation) positively correlated with the three dimensions of the PC (normative, interpersonal and developmental).

Suggestions are made to improve safety production management and safety performance by providing adequate material and economic conditions, helping the workers establish good interpersonal relationships and realize their personal values.

Given the growing concern about employees' well-being, numerous researchers have investigated the causes and effects of occupational stress. However, a review study on identifying existing research topics and gaps is still deficient in the extant literature. To fill this gap, this review study aims to present a bibliometric and science mapping approach to review the state-of-the-art journal articles published on occupational stress in the construction industry.

A three-fold comprehensive review approach consisting of bibliometric review, scientometric analysis and in-depth qualitative discussion was employed to review 80 journal articles in Scopus.

Through qualitative discussions, mainstream research topics were summarized, research gaps were identified and future research directions were proposed as follows: versatile stressors and stress model; an extended subgroup of factors in safety behavior; adaptation of multiple biosensors and bio-feedbacks; evaluation and comparison of organizational stress interventions; and incorporation of artificial intelligence and smart technologies into occupational stress management in construction.

The findings of this review study present a well-rounded framework to identify the research gaps in this field to advance research in the academic community and enhance employees' well-being in construction.

Although many health and safety (H&S) studies have widely examined safety risk perception in the construction industry, few studies have explored how this perception influences site workers' risk-taking behaviours during construction. This study aims to examine how construction site workers perceive and judge safety risks in risk-taking behaviours of site workers for intervention safety policy framework that may encourage safe work.

The study employed Pictorial-based Q-Methodology, which documented 63 picture scenarios of risk-taking behaviours from building sites and submitted them for validation from H&S inspectors. In total, 33 pictures emerged as having great potential to cause harm. After using these 33 pictures to elicit data from randomised site workers, the study used Frequency Tabulation, Relative Importance Index (RII) and Kruskal–Wallis Test to analyse the collected data. To fully explain the analysed data for deeper understanding, the study conducted Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with these site workers to share the thoughts of site workers on these pictures.

Two distinctive pictures emerged from these analyses: one showing risk-taking behaviour likely to contract internal and skin disease and the other likely to fall from height. One of the implications is that construction site workers are unfamiliar with the dangerous contaminants in the materials the site workers use to work, which can potentially harm the site workers' skin and internal organs. Hence, site workers continue engaging in risk-taking behaviours. The other is that site workers are aware of and can mention catastrophic physical injuries attached to site workers' jobs. However, site workers continue engaging in risk-taking behaviours because of site workers' safety plights and rely on the favour and mercies of a supreme being as coping strategies to escape from these physical injuries.

This study is original in that the study uses picture scenarios of risk-taking behaviours to amass an empirical-based understanding of how site workers perceive and respond to H&S risks during construction. This piece of evidence is missing in the numerous research studies in this area. Again, the findings contribute to the state-of-the-art literature regarding risk-taking behaviours on construction sites.

This paper aims to investigate the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management practices of construction companies in South Korea to ascertain specific components and practices that need improvement for successful OSH performance.

A quantitative research strategy was adopted. A close-ended questionnaire survey covering 45 OSH management practices was sent to 324 contractors; 108 responses were gathered, representing a response rate of 33.3%. Data were analysed using simple descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and Pearson’s chi-square test.

The findings revealed that there is a moderate level of implementation of OSH management practices among construction firms in South Korea. However, there is a significant disparity in terms of implementation between large enterprises on the one hand and small to medium enterprises on the other. Furthermore, a few of the business characteristics (i.e. the size of companies and certification to OHSAS 18001) were closely associated with the extent of the implementation of OSH management practices.

This research uncovers the OSH management practices that are poorly implemented and lays the foundation for appropriate measures to improve OSH in South Korean construction companies. It suggests an effective strategy for communicating health and safety issues to workers, training safety managers, reviewing risk assessments, reviewing the health and safety plan, incentivising workers by rewarding good behaviour and having a penal mechanism for employees not adhering to the rules.

The study provides insights into an under-investigated South Korean construction industry topic. It offers additional insight into state-of-the-art health and safety management practices in the construction industry in South Korea. Furthermore, it establishes which components of OSH management practice require improvement in the Korean context. This is also one of the few studies in OSH which establishes the association between the construction business characteristics and OSH management in the South Korean construction domain.

This study aims to explore the “psychological contract of safety” (PCS), a key factor in the safety climate (SC), which relies on the behavioral safety actions of workers at construction sites. While numerous factors have been identified in various sectors across different countries, there is a consensus among researchers that there is a dearth of common assessment factors specifically for the Indian construction industry (ICI). Therefore, this study undertakes a systematic review of existing literature to identify the factors that determine PCS in construction and to ascertain the relative importance index (RII) of these variables and their interrelationships using structural equation modelling (SEM).

A structured survey was conducted among 420 professionals in the ICI to collect data. This data was then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods to derive results.

The findings of the study indicate that PCS factors have a significant impact on the construction industry (CI). The inferential analysis ranks “Safety System” as the top factor with the highest RII value. The chi-square results highlight two key SC factors that enhance and regulate an organization’s safety performance. The SEM results reveal that SC factors contribute to the improvement of PCS and influence worker safety behavior.

The outcomes of this study will be beneficial for stakeholders aiming to improve safety at construction sites and enhance safety performance by fulfilling the mutual safety obligations of employers and employees and by improving safety norms, procedures and policy-making. This paper also provides a theoretical framework for scholars to reassess the results in various contexts.

This paper aims to critically evaluate the impact of empowering leadership on safety behavior and safety climate during safety monitoring at a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Data were collected using questionnaires filled out by 500 participants from the UAE nuclear sector. The relationships among the variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that empowering leadership has a positive impact on safety behavior, and a positive safety climate leads to increased levels of safety behavior (compliance and participation). The results also showed that safety climate partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and safety behavior.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge regarding empowering leadership, safety monitoring, behavior and climate. Because limited information is available on this topic, this study extends the research on the relationship between empowering leadership and safety research at an NPP. Specifically, it outlines that safety monitoring partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and safety behavior. This research enables NPPs worldwide to incorporate empowering leadership to enhance safety monitoring and ensure better safety behavior and climate.

The objective of this research is to propose an immersive framework that integrates virtual reality (VR) technology with directives international safety training certification bodies to enhance construction safety training, which eventually leads to safer construction sites.

The adopted methodology combines expert insights and experimentation to maximize the effectiveness of construction safety training. The first step was identifying key considerations for VR models such as motion sickness prevention and adult learning theories. The second step was developing a game-like VR model for safety training, with multiple hazards and scenarios based on the considerations of the previous step. After that, safety experts evaluated the model and provided valuable feedback on its alignment with international safety training practices. Finally, the developed model is tested by senior students, where the testing format followed the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) working safely exam structure.

An advanced immersive VR safety training model was developed based on extensive lessons learned from the literature, previous work and psychology-informed adult learning theories. Model testing – through focus groups and hands-on experimentation – demonstrated significant benefit of VR in upgrading and complementing traditional training methods.

The findings presented in this paper make a significant contribution to the field of safety training within the construction industry and the broader context of immersive learning experiences. It also fosters further exploration into immersive learning experiences across educational and professional contexts.