BREAKING THE SILENCE AT WORK: BARRIERS TO REPORTING PSYCHOSOCIAL HAZARDS AND MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS IN CONTEMPORARY WORKPLACES: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

Psychosocial hazards and work-related mental health have become central concerns in contemporary occupational health and safety practice, yet they remain substantially underreported in many workplaces. Underreporting weakens hazard identification, delays intervention, distorts surveillance data, and permits harmful working conditions to persist. Despite growing recognition of psychosocial hazards, existing research remains fragmented across occupational health, organizational behavior, and regulatory literatures, limiting the development of integrated reporting strategies. This critical narrative review synthesizes recent empirical studies, international guidance, and regulatory developments, with emphasis on work published over the past decade and selected foundational sources. It explains why reporting remains difficult even where mental health policies, employee assistance programs, or psychosocial risk procedures are formally available. Such arrangements often concentrate on supporting individuals after distress has emerged rather than building the organizational capability to receive, protect, interpret, and act on reports of work-related harm. The evidence shows that silence arises from the interaction of stigma, anticipated career penalties, low psychological safety, limited managerial competence, confidentiality concerns, poorly designed channels, and institutional systems that grant psychological injury less legitimacy than physical harm. A consistent pattern emerges employees are more likely to speak when psychological health is treated as a legitimate safety issue, retaliation is credibly prevented, managers respond competently, and visible corrective action follows. Based on this synthesis, the review proposes a conceptual Psychosocial Reporting Capability Framework (PRCF), which integrates institutional context, organizational climate, managerial practice, and reporting infrastructure. The PRCF provides a practical framework to guide policy development, reporting-system design, managerial capability building, and organizational learning. The review argues that sustainable psychosocial risk management depends on embedding trusted reporting mechanisms within occupational safety systems and treating psychological health as an integral component of workplace safety governance.