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PSC in Action
What is Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)?
PSC is a specific aspect of organisational climate, defined as “policies, practices, and procedures for worker psychological health and safety”
PSC is largely determined by management and leadership within organisations. The PSC construct has four main aspects that connect to best practice principles in the stress prevention, intervention, and safety climate literature.
- First is senior management support and commitment to psychological health through involvement and proactivity. This aspect is evident when senior management take quick and decisive action to address and correct issues that affect psychological health.
- Second is priority the management give to employee psychological health and safety versus productivity goals. For example, job demands (e.g., work pressure, emotional labour, physical demands) may be modified to make them more manageable, and management have the discretion to offer a variety of resources, such as work flexibility, autonomy, and social support that may buffer demands and reduce work stress.
- Third is organisational communication that concerns how the members of the organisation communicate about psychological health and safety, including identification of risks to mental health, strategies for risk control and hazard management.
- The final aspect, organisational participation concerns expectations for involvement from all levels within the organisation regarding stress prevention. It includes the integration of stakeholders such as employees, unions, and health and safety representatives in occupational (psychological) health and safety processes.
(View this pdf file to learn more)
How to interpret PSC results?
PSC is measured using a 12 item scale (PSC-12) with scores ranging from 12 to 60. The following benchmarks were created to show risk levels and prognosis for PSC scores.
Learn More
See more about the PSC benchmarks from the Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) for the 2014-15 data collection.
Psychosocial Safety Climate Fact Sheet
Download Australian Workplace Barometer Psychology Safety Climate Factsheet (PSC) in "pdf" format
How to cite the PSC map and league table (PSC Database)
Afsharian, A., Dollard, M., & Crispin, C., (2024), PSC map and league table (PSC Database). Retrieved from https://www.stresscafe.net/awbproject-278749-565613.html
A Report on the Status of Global PSC:
According to the PSC database review and PSC extractions in November 2024, 262 PSC studies and papers from various industries/sectors, countries, and occupations have been conducted since 2010, helping to shape our understanding of PSC.
The health and education sectors, with significant contributions of (n=55, 21%) and (n=31, 11.9%), respectively, are the most frequent sites of PSC studies. Given the high levels of stress commonly reported in these sectors, their high representation underscores the crucial role researchers consider PSC could play in reducing psychosocial risks and psychological distress in those sectors.
Participants from a wide variety of occupations contribute to the richness of PSC studies. Healthcare workers and nurses, the most frequently studied populations (10%), are joined by representatives from the managerial category (2.3%), various education-related occupations, and even emergency services personnel. This diversity underscores the broad applicability of PSC research.
Regarding the country of research, Australia (26%) and Malaysia (13.7%) have the highest representations in our database. China, Canada, Iran, Sweden, and Ghana are also significant representatives. Several PSC studies were conducted in European countries such as Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy, and Sweden. Additionally, countries in the Asia-Pacific Region, such as China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam, contributed to the geographic diversity of the PSC studies. Conversely, some countries had very low representation, comprising less than 1% of PSC studies, including Pakistan, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, and Nigeria.
Regarding the year of research/publications, the study reveals that the highest number of PSC studies were conducted in 2024. Notably, 2022 and 2019 also had a notable representation of PSC studies. Since 2010, the lowest representation has been in 2011, contributing 1.5% of valid PSC studies.
The PSC average worldwide is 38.05. Most studies have presented low-risk and medium-risk PSC (n = 101, 39.8%), yet there is still an alarming number of studies with high-risk and very high-risk PSC levels (n = 67, 26.6%).
There is still much ongoing research and data collection in progress across different countries. Please remember to upload your PSC research results (i.e., Mean and Standard Deviation) to stresscafe.net via the link below.
Congratulations to PSC scholars for their recent PSC studies, which are below.
Kamil, N. L. M., Stillwell, E., Nordin, W. N. A. W. M., & Zhao, K. (2024). The longitudinal effect of Psychosocial Safety Climate and employee voice behavior: Does job crafting and paradoxical leadership matter? In B. Alareeni & I. Elgedawy (Eds.), Opportunities and Risks in AI for Business Development: Volume 1 (pp. 875–885). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-65203-5_75
Grande, A. H., Farr-Wharton, B., Sharafizad, F., Darcy, S., & Gavin, M. (2024). Catching on: Work stress, employee wellbeing, and the moderating role of team-level emotional contagion. Journal of Management & Organization, 1(1), 1–14. https://doi:10.1017/jmo.2024.44
Loh, M. Y., Dollard, M. F., & Friebel, A. (2024). Economic costs of poor PSC manifest in sickness absence and voluntary turnover. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 1(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/elr.2024.42
Ross, J., Lennefer, T., Brückner, H., Ducki, A., & Lehr, D. (2024). Willingness to change jobs and psychosocial safety climate: A study among nursing staff. In Absence Report 2024: Retention and Health—Recruiting and Retaining Skilled Workers (pp. 43–58). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/9
Gan, K. H., & Kee, D. M. H. (2024). Unlocking the influence of Psychosocial Safety Climate on work engagement and job satisfaction: Exploring the mediating role of job demands. Foresight, 26(5), 948–965. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/FS-09-2023-0173
Thomson, L. E., Wishart, M., Hassard, J., Bourke, J., Dulal-Arthur, T., Belt, V., … & Blake, H. (2024). Symposium: Mental health, well-being, and performance at work: The role of organizational, leadership, and team-level factors.
Loh, M. Y., Dollard, M. F., McLinton, S. S., & Brough, P. (2024). Translating psychosocial safety climate (PSC) into real-world practice: Two PSC intervention case studies. Journal of Occupational Health, 66(1), uiae051. https://doi.org/10.1093/joccuh/uiae051
Hernandez Grande, A., Sharafizad, F., Farr-Wharton, B., Brunetto, Y., & Richman, M. (2024). Managing the impact of workplace trauma for Australian first responders: Harmonizing policy and practice. Public Money & Management, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2024.2331769
Looi, J. C., Maguire, P. A., Kisely, S., Allison, S., & Bastiampillai, T. (2024). Psychosocial workplace safety in mental health services–Commentary and considerations to improve safety. Australasian Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1177/10398562241283206
Dollard, M. F., Loh, M., Becher, H., Neser, D., Richter, S., Zadow, A., … & Potter, R. (2024). PSC as an organisational level determinant of working time lost and expenditure following workplace injuries and illnesses. Safety Science, 177, 106602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2024.106602
