“The Knowledge Regarding Occupational Hazards Among Industrial Workers “

Abstract

Introduction:  Occupational Hazards are risks associated with working in specific occupations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration describes 5 categories of occupational hazards Physical safety hazards, chemical hazards, biological hazards, physical hazards and ergonomic risk factors. Occupational hazards are conditions surrounding the work environment that increase the probability of illness, disability, and death to a worker.

Aim of the study: “To assess the knowledge regarding Occupational hazards among Industrial workers.

Material and method: The study approach was a quantitative with non-experimental descriptive survey design. The sample selection technique was used non-probability purposive sampling technique. The sample size was 200 industrial workers working small scale industries aged between 18-60 years. Samples were selected from different industries from MIDC. The tool used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire that contained demographic variables in section I, section II was related assessment of the knowledge regarding occupational hazards among Industrial workers. The written informed consent was taken from the participants prior to the data collection, in order to establish reliability of the tool, the inter-rater method was used.

Result: Majority i.e. 51% of samples were from 31-40 years of age, 84% of samples were female, 43.5% of samples were having secondary education, 39% of samples were working in industries since 31-40 years. Most of the participants i.e. 87% had awareness on occupational health hazards, 64.5% of them not had any ailment where as 70% of the workers were not undergoing any treatment for the ailment, 47.5% of the industries had regular health checkups being conducted and 62.5% of the industries used safety equipment’s while working. The result shows that 31.5% of the Industrial workers have good knowledge regarding occupational hazards where as 67% had average knowledge and 1.5% workers had poor knowledge regarding the occupational hazards. Significant association was found between knowledge score with duration of work in years & Educational qualification at the 0.005 level of significance.

Conclusion: The study concluded that there was average knowledge regarding occupational hazards among majority of Industrial workers.