Influence of behavioral safety practices and models of prevention of occupational accidents: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

Occupational accident rates in Brazil are still very high. Paradoxically, the national prevention system does not contribute to change in this scenario due mainly to the hegemony of behavioral safety approaches (BSA) that drives not only professional practice and in-company safety programs, but also the way of thinking and the actions of institutionsand public agents. This systematic review aims to evaluate and discuss the impact of those approaches in professional practice and prevention models, and it was conducted in three electronic databases (PubMed, SciELO, andScience Direct) from January 2009 to July 2014. The main descriptor used was "Occupational, Accidents"and the qualifiers "analysis", "legislation and jurisprudence", "prevention and control"were used to refine the search. Thirteen papers (from the 2145 first collected) were considered and categorized in three groups according to the authors' positioning related to BSA. Five studies were developed based on thoseapproaches, two did not mentionthem, and six papers presented studies that were based on theoretical frames contrary to BSA. In the first group, BSA was used forworkers' training or behavior change; in the third group, workers education, accident analysis methods and surveillance, and the safety performance model were the main themes. Even if this review shows the still prevailing influence of behavioral approaches in the academic and professional field, the development of researches contrary to BSAopens new perspectives for prevention.