Determinants of compliance to occupational health and safety guidelines among mill plant workers of roofings rolling mills, phase iii – Namanve

Abstract

Background: The workplace has been established as one of the priority settings for health promotion in the 21st century. This is because it directly influences the physical, mental, economic and social well-being of workers and in turn the health of their families, communities and society. At the center of work place health promotion therefore are employees, who have to comply with a number of occupational health and safety guidelines put in place by their employers. This is even more imperative in the steel industry because it inherently harbors a high degree of work environment related risk because of the presence of a variety of physical, chemical, mechanical, and electrical hazards. While this calls for maximum compliance to safety guidelines on the part of the factory workers, it also calls for institutional action to ensure a safe work environment. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess compliance to occupational health and safety guidelines and its determinants thereof among mill plant workers Method: The study adopted a mixed methods approach. Roofing’s factory Phase III was purposively sampled. At the mill plant, stratified sampling was used to group the plant into five strata by department. To sample the factory worker simple random sampling (SRS) was used. The participants for the in depth interviews were purposively sampled. One quantitative method was used that is structured interviews. Key informant interviews were used to collect data from administrative staffs at the factory. Structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to capture the data. The quantitative data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 21, while qualitative data was thematically analyzed. Results: The study found that the majority of the factory workers at steel rolling mill – phase III factory were compliant to the OHAS safety guidelines (n = 195, 70%). It was found that workers who agreed that supervision was done to see if workers complying to OHAS, were three times as likely to be compliant to OHAS (AOR = 3.10, CI = 1.58 - 4.10). Factory workers who agreed that they were trained on the effective use of hearing-protection devices, were 4 times more likely to be compliant (AOR = 4.42, CI = 2.23 – 5.75). Factory workers who had high knowledge about OHAS (AOR = 2.53, CI = 1.31 – 5.90), those who had worked for less than a year in the factory, (AOR = 4.22, CI = 2.00 - 7.49), those who worked for 6 - 10 hours per day (AOR = 4.42, CI = 1.25 – 6.70), those who perceived that the factory management gave enough work safety support (AOR = 7.28, CI = 2.16 - 11.48), and those who had attained secondary education (O level),(AOR = .23, CI = .09- .61), were more likely to be compliant to safety guidelines. Conclusion: Compliance to occupational health and safety guidelines among factory workers at still rolling mills factory phaseIII is fairly high but not satisfactory. Only 7 out of every 10 workers are compliant to the safety guidelines. The level of compliance was majorly determined by individual characteristics of the factory workers, but also to a smaller extent influenced by institutional obligations such as training and supervion of workers to see if guidelines are being followed.