| dc.description.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. | en_US |
