The effectiveness of an educational programme on occupational disease reporting

BACKGROUND: Occupational diseases are under reported. Targeted education of occupational physicians (OPs) may improve their rate of reporting occupational diseases. AIM: To study the effectiveness of an active multifaceted workshop aimed at improving OPs' reporting of occupational diseases. METHODS: We undertook a comparative study with 112 OPs in the intervention group and 571 OPs as comparisons. The intervention was a 1-day workshop. Measurements of occupational disease reporting activity in both groups in 6-month periods before and after the intervention were collected via the national registration system. Measurements of OPs' knowledge, self-efficacy and satisfaction were made in the intervention group. Differences between the groups and predictive factors for reporting were subsequently analysed statistically. RESULTS: The percentage of reporting OPs after the intervention was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the comparison group at 19 versus 11% (P < 0.01). No differences were found in the average number of reported occupational diseases per reporting physician after the intervention: 3.7 (SD 5.37) versus 3.4 (SD 4.56) (not significant). The self-efficacy score was a predictive factor for reporting occupational diseases (P < 0.05). Measurements of knowledge and self-efficacy increased significantly (both parameters P < 0.001) and remained after half a year. Satisfaction was high (7.85 of 10). CONCLUSIONS: An active, multifaceted workshop on occupational diseases is effective in increasing the number of physicians reporting occupational diseases. Self-efficacy measures are a predictive factor for such reporting.