Psychometric model for safety culture assessment in nuclear research facilities
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Nuclear Engineering and Design
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Resumo
A safe and reliable operation of nuclear power plants depends not only on technical performance, but also
on the people and on the organization. Organizational factors have been recognized as the main causal
mechanisms of accidents by research organizations through USA, Europe and Japan. Deficiencies related
with these factors reveal weaknesses in the organization’s safety culture. A significant number of instruments
to assess the safety culture based on psychometric models that evaluate safety climate through
questionnaires, and which are based on reliability and validity evidences, have been published in health
and ‘safety at work’ areas. However, there are few safety culture assessment instruments with these characteristics
(reliability and validity) available on nuclear literature. Therefore, this work proposes an
instrument to evaluate, with valid and reliable measures, the safety climate of nuclear research facilities.
The instrument was developed based on methodological principles applied to research modeling and its
psychometric properties were evaluated by a reliability analysis and validation of content, face and construct.
The instrument was applied to an important nuclear research organization in Brazil. This organization
comprises 4 research reactors and many nuclear laboratories. The survey results made possible a
demographic characterization and the identification of some possible safety culture weaknesses and
pointing out potential areas to be improved in the assessed organization. Good evidence of reliability
with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.951 was obtained. Validation method was based on Exploratory
Factor Analysis (EFA), using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Varimax orthogonal factor rotation.
The results confirmed the unidimensionality of the items and, almost entirely, the conceptual framework
of the safety culture proposed for the instrument. However, the results also suggested that some adjustments
to the conceptual framework of the instrument must be performed in case of a new application.
Como referenciar
NASCIMENTO, C.S. do; ANDRADE, D.A.; MESQUITA, R.N. de. Psychometric model for safety culture assessment in nuclear research facilities. Nuclear Engineering and Design, v. 314, p. 227-237, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2017.01.022. Disponível em: http://repositorio.ipen.br/handle/123456789/27170. Acesso em: 30 Dec 2025.
Esta referência é gerada automaticamente de acordo com as normas do estilo IPEN/SP (ABNT NBR 6023) e recomenda-se uma verificação final e ajustes caso necessário.