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.