Occupational hazards, incident trends, and safety management in prosthetic and orthotic workshops: A scoping review

Prosthetic and orthotic (P&O) workshops are essential for global rehabilitation but paradoxically expose their workforce to significant occupational hazards, undermining worker health and the consistency of occupational health and safety (OHS) frameworks. This scoping review synthesizes existing evidence on incident patterns, reporting practices, and preventive frameworks specific to P&O workshops to identify knowledge gaps and inform future interventions. Following the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, literature searches were conducted in PubMed and Google Scholar, supplemented by manual searches of key P&O journals, resulting in the inclusion of 14 peer-reviewed articles published between 2014 and 2025. The findings reveal a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among P&O professionals, frequently exceeding 80–90% in some studies, alongside significant psychological stressors such as depression, anxiety, and stress. Hazardous noise levels, often surpassing safety limits, and exposure to chemical dusts, particularly from plaster of Paris, were also consistently reported. A critical deficiency identified was the notable absence of detailed information on formal incident reporting systems across most studies, indicating a significant gap in OHS management. Similarly, preventive frameworks were found to be fragmented; although some studies reported specific engineering controls, ergonomic interventions, and training programs, many offered no details on implemented measures. This review underscores that P&O workshops present multifaceted occupational health challenges. There is an urgent need for the development and implementation of P&O-specific OHS guidelines, robust and nonpunitive reporting systems, and comprehensive, integrated preventive strategies to protect this vital health care workforce and ensure sustainable, high-quality patient care.