Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

Safety climate questionnaires such as the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) are widely used in high-risk work, but their transfer to military organisations cannot be assumed. In strongly hierarchical settings, authority gradients, obedience norms, and mission-oriented framings may alter item meaning and constrain candid reporting, particularly for items concerning autonomy, refusal of unsafe work, or speaking up to superiors.

This article presents a methodological paper based on a bounded narrative synthesis of a Swedish Armed Forces safety climate measurement programme. Drawing on six empirical programme outputs, the article examines which aspects of civilian safety climate measurement appear to transfer to military settings, which are vulnerable to meaning shifts under hierarchy, and what conditions are required for defensible use.

The synthesis indicates that NOSACQ-based measures can retain diagnostic value in military settings, but that direct transferability should not be assumed for all intended uses. Two recurrent threats are particularly important: construct under-representation when mission-relevant hazards and routines are insufficiently captured, and response-process distortion when hierarchy shapes what respondents perceive as legitimate or safe to report. On this basis, the article proposes a staged workflow for adapting, administering, and interpreting safety climate surveys in hierarchical organisations, while restricting between-unit benchmarking unless supported by measurement invariance or differential item functioning evidence.

Introduction Historically, diseases and non-battle injuries (DNBI) typically stand for 70%‒95% of all medical events during military missions. There is, however, no comprehensive compilation of medical statistics for Swedish soldiers during deployment.

Method During United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, climate data and medical outpatient health surveillance data were compiled for Swedish soldiers deployed to Timbuctoo, between 2015 and 2019. Correlations between climate data and medical outpatient health surveillance data were analysed.

Results Battle injuries accounted for 0.4% of the visits to healthcare, while diseases accounted for 53.6%, and non-battle injuries for 46%, the majority being musculoskeletal injuries. The combination of high temperature, humidity, sun radiation and good visibility, during summer rotation weeks, caused more events of injuries and heat stress than any other period.

Conclusion Musculoskeletal injuries were the major cause for visits to the Swedish camp hospital. Injuries and heat stress increased during periods of high temperature, humidity, sun radiation and good visibility. Lack of medical data, i.e. unknown number of unique patients seeking healthcare, cause codes not always connected to a primary diagnosis, and revisits not being connected to a diagnose, complicated interpretation of health risk factors.

This study aimed to identify additional safety climate factors by re-examining items previously excluded from two earlier studies on the Swedish Armed Forces. Several excluded items were originally designed to capture features of high-reliability organizations (HROs), particularly relevant in command and control (C2) environments. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), a new factor labeled Safety Improvement was identified and validated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a new sample drawn from a Swedish regiment. The CFA demonstrated acceptable model fit indices. The new factor was integrated into the Military Safety Climate Questionnaire (MSCQ), and its compatibility with the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) was tested. The Safety Improvement factor captures how military personnel engage in reflection, learning, and procedural adaptation—practices critical to effective and safe command and control. These findings underscore that safety climate tools designed for both military and civilian use may overlook key dimensions unique to the military, such as decentralized decision-making and adaptive coordination under pressure. As such, this revised instrument supports not only peacetime safety management but also enhances operational readiness by identifying safety-related vulnerabilities, reducing risk during crises and combat situations.

The purpose of this study has been to develop a shortened version of NOSACQ-50 using previously collected military data. NOSACQ-50 has previously been tested and validated with data from the Swedish Armed Forces, published in three separate studies. The three sets of data from these previous studies were used for further testing. Classical test theory and item response theory were used to reduce the items included in the NOSACQ-50 questionnaire. The results indicate that the military population perceives safety differently, thus making items included in shorter versions of NOSACQ developed with civilian data, underperform with military data. The 50 items included in NOSACQ could be reduced to 35/34 items. There are several limitations to this study; one limitation is that the NOSACQ-35 questionnaire was only used within the existing NOSACQ-50 framework, making accuracy improvements impossible to detect. Further research should focus on an experimental design with a randomized experimental group using the NOSACQ-35 and a randomized control group using the NOSACQ-50 questionnaire. However, the NOSACQ-35 was tested within the full NOSACQ-50 framework, claims regarding improved usability and reliability should be interpreted with caution. Future research should evaluate the NOSACQ-35 as a standalone instrument.

The purpose of this pilot study is to identify specific safety climate dimensions pertaining to firearm safety and accidental discharge of firearms. New items capture the seriousness in firearms training pertaining to safety, handling and learning. The new items were developed in cooperation with the Swedish Armed Forces. The new items together with the Nordic safety climate questionnaire and the military safety climate questionnaire were distributed to one regiment within the Swedish Armed Forces. Data was collected and analyzed through statistical methods. An exploratory factor analysis initially indicated two new factors. The confirmatory factor analysis rejected one new factor keeping Serious firearms training. A two-level factor model was created influenced by accidents and incidents relating to firearms. Two latent variables were identified Safety Voice and Safety engagement both affected by accidents and incidents relating to firearms. The employee category squad leaders, soldiers or sailors at the lowest level of the organization, display significant differences compared to others in creating a climate were incidents and accidents might not be discussed or learnt from preventing unsafe behavior. The results from this study have one dominant limitation, this being that the sample size is only from one regiment. The new factor Serious firearms training need additional testing and validation before being adopted into an instrument. Future research should focus on verifying the two-level factor model with additional data from other military installations and to incorporate other types of variables into the model.

The purpose of this study is to adjust and develop Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) specifically for the military domain. Many safety climate instruments have been developed for complex organizations but few with a military perspective including military exercises and physical training. Data were collected during two separate occasions, experiment one (n = 956) and experiment two (n = 377). The questionnaire was distributed to civilian and military personnel working in the Swedish Armed Forces and to military cadets. The results of experiment one was then analyzed using principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses, the factor structure was reproduced in experiment two. The results from the study confirmed the reliability and validity of NOSACQ-50 as a safety climate instrument in the military organization. However, several new factors were identified with the military safety climate questionnaire (MSCQ). Physical fitness and exercises are important activities in the military but are less important in other organizations which could explain why it isn’t present in traditional safety climate instruments. This study identifies several limitations one being the design of questions suitable for both military and civilian personnel. Another limitation is combat operations, this data collection recognizes the field but was unable to capture data from actual combat operations. Further research is needed to fully develop more dimensions for both exercises and combat operations.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the transformation of Twitter from a usable tool for spreading information to a space for learning. When we talk about different software, we in many cases can’t phantom their outreach and connectivity. Specific software solutions have been integrated into our lives making them a part of ourselves. Specific tools can be designed to enhance specific functions within the software such as automatic accounts spreading keywords users write. Users are humans and perceive their cyber environment in the same way as they perceive human interaction in real life. The transformation changed the tool to an area of operation where different stakeholders can interact with each other. From an intelligence perspective, the distinction between technology and HUMINT no longer serves its purposes of classification – it has merged into one and the same. From the perspective of C2, information technology in itself is still emphasized at the cost of other dimensions, hence obscuring the very mechanisms of how what is only seen as social media in fact is a dimension of itself. While the human dimension is sometimes addressed, there is a dearth of research exploring its workings.

The study investigates how two-sided military exercises affect learning and participating personnel's ability to perform tasks safely when confronted with an equally matched opponent. Data were collected from two separate events the Northern Wind 2019 Final Planning Conference and the Northern Wind 2019 exercise using participatory observations and shadowing. The outline of the critical incident technique was used as a guide when designing the data collection and the activity theory framework was used for coding and analyzing the data. The results indicate that a driven desire to win two-sided military exercises can create unsafe work practices by performing work tasks without regard for occupational-, electrical- or fire safety. The results also indicate a need for reshaping the conception of a two-sided military exercise by treating the exercise as a learning opportunity and recognizing the impact of the participating unit on each other’s learning. The study is based on the results of one army exercise and requires further research to understand the activities that take place and how they affect learning and safety. However, it gives some insight into the learning problems occurring during military field exercises.

Preventing accidents within a complex environment like a force on force military exercise ischallenging for the organization. The aim of this study is to investigate safety behavior by usingactivity theory in combination with critical incident technique in order to identify conditions effectingthe health and safety of individuals employed by the Swedish armed forces (SwAF) participating inmilitary exercises. The empirical data was collected from two separate events final planningconference of Northern Wind 2019 (FPC-NW19) and the exercise Northern Wind 2019 (NW19). Datawas collected using observations and conversations with military, medical and safety professionals.One researcher followed the FPC-NW19 and the observed the exercise NW19 by shadowing staffmembers and safety personnel.Data was analyzed, thematized and coded using the third generation of activity theory and its areas:tools, rules, community, division of labor, subject and object as a guide for identifying contradictions.Results indicate that the methods used for planning and the use of safety equipment whenconducting military tasks during the exercise is influenced by the desire of winning the exercise.The results also indicate that activity theory can be a useful tool to identify contradictions affectingsafety performance. However, the study is only limited to two events with a narrow scope from theArmy. Further refinement is needed to develop a functioning method for analyzing safety behavior.