Digital training for psychosocial risk assessment as an approach to foster primary prevention for SMEs: An evaluation study

BACKGROUND: Rapidly changing stressful working conditions put new challenges on mental health in future work, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which need to be addressed on an organisational level. To promote, secure and sustain a healthy workforce in the long run, primary prevention of psychosocial risks is needed. Still, 70% of EU companies and over 85% of German SMEs lack the legally required implementation of psychosocial risk assessment (PRA) in their occupational safety and health (OSH) management.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the digital training PsyHealth worXs! as a suitable approach to teach OSH stakeholders how to conduct PRA.

METHODS: We conducted a longitudinal evaluation study with two measurement times in the first and last week of the digital training based on N = 312 questionnaires.

RESULTS: After the training, participants' knowledge of the PRA process was significantly higher, and they felt significantly more competent to derive OSH interventions. Overall, the process of PRA and the involvement of stakeholders were perceived as significantly easier.

CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the digital training provides an easily accessible opportunity for SMEs to successfully enable their OSH management to implement PRA strategies. Future research will have to evaluate the overall long-term implementation increase of PRA in German SME companies.