Jens B. Grøgaard

The impact of social and organizational factors on workers' use of personal protective equipment: a multilevel approach.

Objective: On the basis of the job demands-control-support model by Karasek and Theorell, we investigated how social and organizational factors influence workers’ use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among 1420 workers in 203 motor vehicle-repair garages. Multilevel modeling was performed to account for the hierarchical structure of the data. Results: Social and management support correlated positively with PPE use at the worker level. Low demands measured at the garage level and having a health and safety management system at the garage also correlated with active use of PPE. An interaction effect between social support and garage-level demands was observed. Conclusions: In addition to health information and provision of PPE, focusing on social and organizational factors seems necessary to get more workers to comply with the instructions on PPE use.