| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: Occupational safety remains an ignored aspect among employers and employees. Globally, more than 2.3 million people die from occupational injuries or diseases, with more than 313 million people per year getting involved in non-fatal occupational injuries resulting into serious injuries and work absence. All these can cause reduced work force, reduced productivity due to lost work hours, as well as increase in poverty due to out of pocket treatment of the disease and injuries. However, there is very poor reporting and documentation of occupational hazards and injuries as well as use of personal protective equipment (PPE), the last line of defence against occupational injuries.
Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge attitude and practices towards usage of PPE among workers in small-scale industries in Lira Municipality in order to generate data that can be used to influence policy making towards occupational safety of workers.
Methods: This was a quantitative study that utilized questionnaires administered to the participants. Two hundred six respondents were randomly selected and interviewed from 20 industries. The data was collected on worker knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding the use of PPE. Collected quantitative data was manually cleaned and entered into Epi-Data 3.0 software, where data were cleaned and then exported to Stata IC 12 software ‘STATA statistical software, version 12.0 for analysis. The data was presented in form of frequencies, mean, median and percentages, using tables and figures, accordingly.
Results: Two hundred six respondents participated in the study; 84.95% were males. The majority of respondents 93.69% (193/206) were aware that their workplace posed occupational health risk to their health. In addition, the majority of the respondents 90.29% (186/206) were aware of the existence of PPE as an occupational safety measure although slightly more than half (53.88%, (111/206) had never received any training on the usage of PPE. The total knowledge score for the majority of workers was 60.68% 125/206), indicating poor knowledge on PPE. majority of the respondents 96.60% (199/206) agreed that PPE offers protection, with 93.20% (192/206) saying that they can use PPE if made available, and 87.86% (181/206) feeling that it is necessary to protect themselves at work. The total attitude score showed that majority 77.67% (160/206) had a positive attitude towards PPE. The majority of the respondents 64.08% (135/206) had PPE, with 92.59% (125/135) of these actually using it. Slightly more than half of the respondents (52.20%, 64/135) used PPE when exposed to dangerous work. The total practice score 57.60% (72/125) showed that most of the respondents who had PPE had good practices of PPE.
Conclusion and recommendation: The study showed that the majority of workers knew that their workplaces posed occupational health risks to them and nearly two-thirds of the respondents had PPE. The study also shows that the majority of workers had a favourable attitude towards PPE which could probably explain the high use of PPE among those that had it.
The recommendations were addressed to both occupational safety authorities, the employers, and employees. With safety officers, employers mainly being required to initiate more outreach programs to inform workers, employers and employees about work safety and protection to fill the knowledge gap | en_US |
