Journal of Health and Safety at Work

---

Introduction: Positive safety attitude of employees is directly associated with workplace safety, and it can decrease occupational accidents through increasing the number of safety acts. Assessment of employees’ safety attitude in workplaces can be more helpful to identify underlying causes of unsafe acts. The main aim of this study was to assess safety attitude and its’ relationship with different personal and occupational variables in a number of manufacturing companies, located in Urmia City, Iran.  

Material and Method: In this study, the safety attitude of 194 employees was measured in 9 manufacturing companies using a questionnaire with acceptable validity and reliability. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: participants’ personal and job related information, as well as 46 safety attitude related questions. The questions of safety attitude was measured using a five-point Likert scale in form of ten main aspects. 
 
Result: The results indicated that majority of participants (78.9 %) had a moderate safety attitude level and the mean (±SD) score of total safety attitude was 3.19 (±0.25). “Commitment to safety and participation in safety activities” and “safety talk and risk information communication” obtained the highest and lowest scores of safety attitude factors, with mean (SD) of 3.97(±0.52) and 2.53(±0.58), respectively. In addition, the participants from private companies showed a better safety attitude than those of governmental companies (P-value<0.05). Managers and workers, who had previously received safety training, reported a different attitude toward various factors of safety attitude, in comparison with untrained groups.

Conclusion: Since the majority of participants had a moderate safety attitude, this research suggests the study companies to attempt in order to increase the quantity and quality of safety training courses, as well as safety communication of managers and supervisors with workers for improving their attitude toward safety and subsequently decreasing occupational accidents.

---

Introduction: One of the important consequences of globalization and development, especially in developing countries, are occupational accidents. As, today the economic burden due to these accidents is remarkable on the country’s economy. The aim of this study was financial estimate of the productivity loss due to work-related deaths in Iran in 2013.

Material and Method: In this study, occupational accident data were used registered in the environmental and occupational health center, in Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. A formula used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention America (CDC) was used to estimate the productivity loss. Finally, after replacing the necessary parameters amount of productivity loss was calculated.

Result: The total lost years of life were calculated 1293.15 years due to the deaths caused by occupational accidents. The total amount of monetary loss due to the productivity loss in the country, was estimated 730513.06 Rials. The greatest loss was in the 59-50 years old age group.

Conclusion: The negative rate of productivity, the large quantity of the discount rate, low life expectancy in the country as well as the low wages of the workers, are the likely reasons for minimal negative impact of the workforce deaths on the country’s productivity.

---

Introduction: Work-Family Conflict can influence the physical and mental health of workers as a social parameter. The aim of this study is supposed to provide theoretical model of relationship between work-family conflict and occupational accidents, taking into account parameters such as job stress and general health of employees in a steel manufacturing industry.

Material and Method: Research population included workers of steel department of a steel manufacturing industry. This research was a cross-sectional study, and 270 individuals were selected in two groups, with an accident experience during lasts 5 years (case) and without (control). They responded to questionnaires including 4 parts, demographic, 18 questions of work-family conflict, 35 questions of job stress and, 28 questions of general health. Data were analyzed and introduced using AMOS software.

Result: Result showed that the model present an excellent goodness of fit and all of factors were significant between parameters (p<0.001). In addition, individual health and job stress with high coefficient could affect work-family conflict and work-family conflict was effective in the event of occupational accidents.

Conclusion: Reducing work-family conflict as a social parameter affecting stress can be effective in the reduction of occupational accidents. The organizational management system with optimization of this important factor can upgrade its level of occupational safety.

---

Introduction: Correspondence analysis method and preparation of accidents and occupational hazards pattern is able to predict and anticipate accidents and is automatically prioritize the risks and injuries. The aim of this study was to present accidents and occupational hazards pattern based on risk-injury groups, which use it to manage of occupational accidents.

Material and Method: The report of occupational accidents, registered in the social security organization was collected in a period of ten years from 2005 to 2015 (222,300 accidents). Types of risk and injuries to any of the accidents specified based on International Labor Organization criteria and risk of injury were classified in a matrix (18 × 18). Risk-injury groups were separately identified using correspondence analysis and collapse process, as patterns of accidents and occupational hazards. In the mentioned patterns, the relationship between risks and damage can be identified, as it facilitates decision-making in risk assessment in companies covered by the social security organization.

Result: According to the findings, three groups of occupational accidents were obtained and variables of these three groups extracted from the obtained patterns. The first group included six risks and seven injuries that the risks variables were: contact with hot materials, accidents caused by caustic  and corrosive substances, contact with chemicals, accidents caused by toxic substances, contact with electrical equipment, explosion and fire, and injuries were: burns, other injuries, multiple injuries, gas poisoning, suffocation, poisoning, environmental hazards. The second group included seven risks and six injuries that the risks variables were: accidents caused by displacement, projections of fragments or particles, accidents caused by machine tools, slipping, falling people, falling objects, other accidents and injuries were: twists and sprains, dipping the objects in the body, objects in the eyes, cuts and amputations, superficial wounds, deep wounds. Finally, the third group included five risks and five injuries that risks variables were: Falling under the rubble, accident with vehicle, accidents caused by displacement, colliding of persons against objects, projections of fragments or particles, accidents caused by manual tools, trapped between objects, accidents caused by machine tools and injuries were: fractures, dislocation, back pain, hitting, contusions and crushing. It should be noted that the study of these patterns can be used to identify and prioritize of occupational accidents.

Conclusion: The proposed groups make new opportunities for development of the applications to analyze, interpret and automate management of occupational accidents in order to minimize uncertainty and increase its objectivity. Its advantage over other similar analyses can be considering both the risks and injury and to obtain groups of two variables. Due to the frequency and distribution of mass of risk and injury variables in the groups, the risk and injury variables of group 3 are the most important, and the risk and injury variables of group 2 are less important and the risk and injury variables of group 1 have the least importance.

---

Introduction: Besides the occupational accident physical, psychological damages, and its economic losses, it can have a serious effect on the quality of working life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of occupational accidents on the quality of working life and its dimensions among workers in a steel manufacturing companies.   
Material and Methods: This case-control study was carried out among 100 workers (case) with an occupational accident history and 100 workers with no history of incident (control) in the production lines of a steel company during the period of 2012 to 2016. The study was conducted after matching the confounding variables such as age, work history, income level, etc. Data were collected using the NIOSH quality of work life questionnaire. For statistical analysis, SPSS 16 was used and χ2 and paired t-test statistical analysis were performed.
Results: According to the results of current study, the quality of work life average scores of the case (47.6±2.3) and control (49.5±2.3) groups was highly significant (p<0.001). Also, six out of eight dimensions of the quality of life was significantly affected by occupational accidents, but the highest and lowest influence was found on ergonomics and safety aspect, and the work and life aspect, respectively.
Conclusion: According to the result of this study, it can be concluded that occupational accidents are one of the important factors that influence the workers’ quality of work life. Therefore, quality of working life can be considered as a helpful tool in increasing job satisfaction, improving the efficiency and employability of employees and preventing accidents.

---

---

Introduction: Prevention of occupational accidents is of a great importance. Analysis of accidents and their causes could prevent the accidents recurrence. The study objective was to investigate the causes of occupational accidents in a dispatching project.
Material and method:  This research is descriptive-analytic. Data were extracted from the reports of occupational near-misses and accidents recorded between 2013 and 2017 and analyzed using Tripod-Beta model. Then direct, indirect and root causes of the accidents were identified. Based on the causes identified, a questionnaire was developed to analyze the workers’ mental patterns in relation to the real causes, and Friedman test was used to rank the causes.
Results: The results showed the falling/dropped objects hit a person, inappropriate working conditions and lack of safety trainings were, respectively, the most important direct, indirect and root causes as per the analysis results. The leakage of flammable and explosive substances, hazardous conditions in the workplace and discrimination in rewards were the most important causes from the employees’ views.
Conclusion: Identifying and ranking the most important causes of accidents would help to prevent the occurrence of similar events. Also, the analysis of the causes based on the employees’ mental patterns could be effective in the prevention of accidents.

---

Introduction: Occupational accidents are one of the major challenges of the industrial workplaces. The identifying of the effective causes of the incidents occurrence, could be used to prevent them. This study was aimed to determine basic causes of occupational accidents in a vehicle manufacturing company.
Material and Methods: The occupational accidents leading to loss of time, which cause losing at least one working day, occurred from 2012 to 2017 were analyzed using the Tripod-Beta method and the causes of their occurrences were determined from the active failures to the root causes. The data were analyzed using the SPSS-22 software.
Results: Eighty percent of the occupational accidents that occurred in a vehicle manufacturing company were related to 6 root causes, i.e. the weakness of OR (20%), EC (17%), MM¬ (12%), CO (10%), IG (10%) and DE (9%). Absence of necessary authority to stop working is the most important reason for the occurrence of the weakness of Organization system with a rate of 28%.
Conclusion: By handling three root causes appropriately, i.e. improving OR, EC and MM, more than 50% of accidents can be prevented. Proper hiring of workers, exact definition of accountability and an accurate job description to the employees, proper monitoring and supervision, and near-miss recordings are suggested to reduce this incidence rate.

---

Introduction: Maintaining and improving organizational safety requires a strong safety culture. Following the occurrence of occupational incidents, proper registration, reporting, and investigation is a key requirement for safety culture to provide an appropriate learning culture. As a result, this study was carried out to assess the culture of occupational incident registration, reporting, and investigation in the province of west Azarbaijan’s industries.
Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, data on the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incident were collected using a 68-item questionnaire. A total of 420 employees from a number of construction and mine companies, as well as hospitals participated in this study.
Results: The results of study showed that the average total score for the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents was 3.08 (±0.38), with the factor of corrective action had the highest 3.17 (±0.72) and the reasons for lack of reporting had the lowest 2.90 (±0.54) scores. There was also a significant relationship between the average score of the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents with education, industries, and companies. Employees who attended training courses had a lower mean score for the culture of occupational incident’ registration, reporting, and investigation than those who did not take training courses. The mean score of the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents of the employees who had experienced an occupational accident was lower than those who had not experience occupational accidents in the past.
Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that corrective actions is necessary after the occurrence of occupational incidents. Attending training courses and having an occupational accident experience had no positive impact on promoting culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents.

---

Introduction: Nearly half of occupational accidents in Iran occur in construction sites. Therefore, modeling of occupational accidents in these sites is one of the solutions to design safety strategies to reduce occupational accidents in the field of construction. This study was designed and conducted with the aim of modeling the cause-consequence of accidents in construction sites.
Material and Methods: This study was conducted based on a retrospective analysis of 10-year accident data (2010-2019) in Iranian construction sites in 2020. The main variable included the types of occupational accidents in construction sites. The study tool included accidents checklist as well as a detailed report of the studiedaccidents. The required data were collected based on a conceptual model designed to model the cause-consequence of accidents in the construction sites. Cause-consequence modeling of the studied accidents has been done based on the structural equation modeling and using IBM SPSS AMOS v. 22.0.
Results: The frequency of the studied accidents was 3854 accidents. The annual averages of AFR and ASR indices were 17.27 ± 8.54 and 322.42 ± 44.23 days, respectively. The results of cause-consequence modeling of these construction accidents showed that individual and occupational, safety training and risk assessment factors as well as variables related to these factors have a negative and significant relationship with the indicators of the construction accidents, and the factors of environmental conditions and unsafe acts and variables belonged to these factors have a positive and significant relationship with these indicators (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: The findings of the study revealed that the highest impact factors on accident indicators were related to safety training, risk assessment and unsafe acts and their variables. Therefore, the results of this modeling can help to design safety strategies in construction sites.