This paper presents the results of an extensive survey concerning the experience of safety footwear end-users. Safety footwear has been in widespread use across many industries worldwide since the 1970s, and has become an essential part of industrial Personal Protective Equipment. The number of women entering predominantly male industrial environments, and requiring safety footwear is rising, and this is accompanied by anecdotal reports of ill-fitting and uncomfortable footwear.

This research proactively compares the opinions of women and men regarding their experience of safety footwear. A systematically designed survey aims to substantiate previously anecdotal knowledge around safety footwear, including key drivers for end-user purchases, wear habits and comfort issues (establishing any differences between women and men). Chi-squared testing was used to assess statistical significance and ensure robustness of findings. The responses and resulting analysis confirmed that comfort and fit were key drivers for all end users; women and men have different wear habits (women wear their safety footwear less frequently and for shorter periods of time than men – likely due to the reported comfort issues); a significant proportion of women (60%) found their safety footwear less comfortable than their regular footwear, however, 45% of men also reported the same, which has not been reported anecdotally. In general, the users of safety footwear accepted a level of discomfort in at least one area of the foot before deeming footwear ‘uncomfortable’.

The significant analysis performed on the captured data has, to the authors knowledge, never before been undertaken for this breadth of industry, age and gender with 632 responses received. This makes it the largest study of this field to date.

本文介绍了有关安全鞋最终用户体验的广泛调查的结果。自 1970 年代以来，安全鞋已广泛应用于全球许多行业，并已成为工业个人防护设备的重要组成部分。进入以男性为主的工业环境并需要安全鞋的女性人数正在增加，并且伴随着不合身和不舒服鞋类的轶事报道。

这项研究主动比较了女性和男性对安全鞋体验的看法。一项系统设计的调查旨在证实先前有关安全鞋的轶事知识，包括最终用户购买的关键驱动因素、穿着习惯和舒适度问题（确定男女之间的任何差异）。卡方检验用于评估统计显着性并确保结果的稳健性。响应和结果分析证实，舒适性和合身性是所有最终用户的关键驱动因素；女性和男性有不同的穿着习惯（与男性相比，女性穿安全鞋的频率更低，时间更短——可能是由于报告的舒适度问题）；很大比例的女性 (60%) 发现她们的安全鞋不如普通鞋舒适，但是，45% 的男性也报告了同样的情况，但没有传闻。一般而言，安全鞋的使用者在认为鞋子“不舒服”之前，会接受脚部至少一个区域的不舒服程度。

据作者所知，之前从未针对如此广泛的行业、年龄和性别对捕获的数据进行重要分析，收到了 632 份回复。这使其成为迄今为止该领域最大的研究。