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.