Journal of Health and Safety at Work

Introduction: Agriculture is amongst the hazardous activities with a high rate of occupational injuries. Safety training is proved to have positive effects on reduction of agricultural users’ occupational accidents. In this sense, agricultural experts and extension agents play an important role in safety training programs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate attitude of Agricultural Jihad Organization professionals toward safety.
 

Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was implemented by survey research design. The study population was 230 individual selected by Tackmans' Table, using proportionate stratification sampling method from Agricultural Jihad Organization professionals in Khuzestan and Ilam provinces. A questionnaire validated by a panel of experts and its reliability within a pilot with Coronbach Alpha's coefficient (α=0.75), was used for data collection. Data were finally analyzed by SPSS software version 22.
 

Results: The mean (SD) of safety attitude score was 4.04(0.77) out of 5, and overall attitude of 71.23 percent of the respondents toward agricultural safety were at "good" and "moderate" level. Of the components of experts' safety attitude "spending on safety is a worthwhile investment" and "the necessity of formulation of agricultural safety legislation by executers" had the first and second priority, respectively. There were significant differences in safety attitude considering gender and job tenure. However, no significant difference was observed regarding marital status, occupational group, and witnessing agricultural accidents. Furthermore, the association between safety attitude and "age" and "education" was positive and significant; but no significant correlation was found between number of educational courses and safety attitude.
 

Conclusion: Considering the importance of safety training, identifying the factors pertinent to agricultural experts' safety attitude would help safety experts to develop and implement strategies in order to reduce occupational accidents in this sector.

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.