Survey of the health, safety and environment climate and its effects on occupational accidents

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Preserving and protecting the human resources is considered as the most important capital in any economic section by industrial development. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the health, safety and environment (HSE) climate and its effects on occupational accidents in a petrochemical industry. METHOD: This cross-sectional study was performed on 354 male workers in a petrochemical industry (10 different categories of site operators). Data was collected through a questionnaire, which its validity and reliability were standardized with Cronbach’s alpha at 0.85. In this questionnaire the safety condition, workplace environment, disease symptoms were investigated in five, four and three dimensions, respectively. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 23 and LISREL version 8.8. RESULTS: According to the model values, there were significant correlation between safety condition and workplace environment r = 0.66, also between work safety condition and disease symptoms. The three hidden variables of work safety condition, work mental environment and physical workplace had significant effects on disease symptoms. Therefore, safety condition was the most effective variable on disease symptoms. Two significant predictors were work safety condition and physical workplace for work mental environment with coefficients γ= 2.29, β= –0.1, respectively. CONCLUSION: HSE condition indicators, working environment and disease symptoms reflect workers’ views on HSE issues in the workplace. It can be beneficial in rooting the factors affecting occupational accidents and performance evaluation in the organization HSE management system.