Organizational responses to near-miss reporting and perceived organizational support among Japanese workers: a longitudinal cohort study

Near-miss events in the workplace serve as important signals for occupational accident prevention, and organizational responses to near-miss reports may influence employees’ perceived organizational support (POS). the association between organizational response patterns to near-miss reports and POS has not been sufficiently examined. This longitudinal study used data from an online cohort study of Japanese workers conducted at baseline (March 2023) and follow-up (December 2023). The analysis included 1,168 non-managerial workers who had experienced at least one near-miss event. Participants were categorized into four groups based on reporting behavior and the adequacy of organizational responses: reporting with adequate response, reporting with partial response, reporting with no response (reference), and no reporting. Associations between response patterns and POS at follow-up were examined using linear regression analysis. Employees in the reporting with adequate response (B = 2.16, 95% CI: 0.71–3.61) and reporting with partial response (B = 1.68, 95% CI: 0.12–3.23) groups showed significantly higher POS at follow-up compared with the reporting with no response group. The no reporting group also showed significantly higher POS (B = 1.63, 95% CI: 0.13–3.12). No significant moderating effect of company size was observed. These findings suggest that the quality of organizational responses to near-miss reports is associated with POS regardless of company size. Employees who reported near-miss events but received no organizational response showed the lowest POS, even lower than those who did not report. These findings highlight the importance of adequate follow-up and communication after near-miss reporting.