Halim İşsever PhD ¹., Levent Önen PhD²., Oktay Tan ³ ., Rian Dişçi PhD ¹.

Accident is a sudden event that may cause physical and emotional damage. There are several reasons of accidents. In general, causes of work accidents are divided into two. First, unsafe conditions, second un-guaranteed attitudes. In spite of good working conditions personal characteristics are very important factors in work accidents.

This research examines the effect of personal factors at work accidents in a safe work place in which 1200 workers work. Experimental group of research participants were 50 injured workers who came to infirmary in May – June 2000. Participants’ demographic properties were determined with the help of a questionnaire, then they were given EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire), BSI (Brief Ssymptom Inventory), Benton’s perception and attention memory test, BFI (Brief Fatigue Inventory). A control group is formed with 150 randomly chosen workers who work at the same place. The same tests were administered to control group with a one to one interview technique. Therefore, research participants were 200 workers from the same work place.

At the end of the evaluations it was found that experimental group participants have lower scores in Benton’s test, higher scores in EPQ neurotism and 24 hours general tiredness. Differences between experimental and control groups were statistically significant (p<0.05) There are no significant differences for other variables (p>0.05)

As a result work entrance health examinations gain more importance for those work places which have high risk of accidents. Work entrance must depend on evaluations of personal characteristics of workers.

Key words : Work accidents, personal factors, construction industry.

 

1 University of Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Department Public Health

According to International Labour Office statistics,120 million occupational accidents occur annually at workplaces world-wide. Of these, 210.000 are fatal accidents. Every day more than 500 man or women do not come home because they were killed by accidents at work. These are dramatic numbers, which draw fairly little public attention. Considering the fact that accidents take a considerable economic toll from nations, companies and individuals, accidents do not get much publicity (1). Construction site accidents are unfortunately still commonplace. Thousands of construction workers are injured or killed in construction site accidents each year. Construction companies must inspect each site with safety engineers and provide safety programs, but unfortunately accidents still occur due to the inadequacy of these provisions.

Industrial accident is an unplanned and unexpected event that causes injury. In general, the causes of industrial accidents are grouped into two. First, unsafe conditions, second, unsafe acts (1,2)

Unsafe conditions are insufficient or inappropriate lightening, extreme noise, extremely hot and extremely cold air conditioning, lack of machine protection, inappropriate working distances and inappropriate clothes.(5) In hot working conditions, high sweat rates with excessive loss of body fluids may result in dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. It is well established that dehydration and/or electrolyte disturbances will impair work performance, and, if prolonged or severe, can pose a serious risk to health.

Unsafe acts are lack of pre-service training, lack of knowledge about personal and machine protection, lack of work experience, having diseases that will cause accidents, being inattentive, clumsy and awkward, having alcohol and drug addiction and smoking. (1,2,3,10,11). Adverse work and environmental conditions, objectively assessed, can predict occurrence of occupational injuries (4).

Removing unsafe work conditions is not enough to prevent industrial accidents. At branches of work, like metal and construction, which have high risks of accidents, individuals take an important place among the causes of accidents. This research examines personal factors that are important for industrial accidents in a construction yard, which has no problem in terms of health and safety precautions.

The research took place in a construction yard, which has 1200 workers, in May-June 2000. Sixty injured workers, came to the construction’s infirmary during this two-month period, participated in this research as an experimental group. Personal characteristics of participants were inquired by a questionnaire. Additionally, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (17) (EPQ), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) and Benton’s Perception and Attention Memory Tests were administered to participants in the first 24-hour right after the accident(13,14,15). Hundred and seventy randomly chosen workers, who were not injured, participated in this research as the control group. Ten workers from experimental, twenty workers from the control group were excluded because of their high scores in lie dimension of EPQ. For that reason, research data were collected from 50 experimental, 150 control group participants. Statistical analysis were done by using the Student-t , Mann –Whitney – U test and Chi –square tests

The participants’ average age was 29.56+8.17, average height was 170.77+6.25, average weight was 70.42+8.78, and average of Body Mass Index (BMI) was 24.15+3.15. 115 of the participants (57.5%) were married, 85 of them (42.5%) were single. Ninety percent of the workers were staying at places provided by the employer. There were sufficient health and safety conditions in the construction yard. Additionally, contractors provided all protection materials needed. Work-health and safety meetings were held regularly in every month. There was a work- physician who works full time in the construction yard. Few workers who live close to construction yard were staying at their own house. Participants’ distributions according to their educational level were as follows: 136 of them (68%) were elementary school, 36 of them (18%) were secondary school, and 28 of them (14%) were high school graduated. Although normal working period was 8-hour, there were 3-hour of additional work depending on intensity of work. 162 of participants (81%) had no sleeping problem, whereas 38 of them (19%) had sleeping disorder from time to time. 135 of workers (67.5%) were satisfied with their job, whereas 65 of them (37.5%) were not satisfied. 120 of the participants (60%) were not smoking, but 80 of them (40%) were smoking average 16.29+8.50 cigarettes per day. For both groups (experimental and control) data related to marital status, work status (c ² =0.89, p> 0.05), level of education (c ² =2.91, p> 0.05), time for being away from family, work satisfaction (c ² =0.75, p> 0.05), sleeping problems (c ² =1.24, p> 0.05), smoking (c ² =1, p> 0.05) were not statistically significant. Among the experimental group, 10 participants went on work without being on medical leave, whereas 40 of them were average 2.47+0.91 days on medical leave. Accidents can be grouped as hit by an object (24 participants), to be crushed (14 participants), and to be cut (12 participants).

Absent-mindedness was the cause of 45% of the accidents. Mostly injured body parts were primarily foot, secondarily skull, hand, arm and face. When participants’ complaints about their bodies were evaluated, it was found that they mostly had back pain, headache and secondarily, they had complaint from their skin. Among the complaints from skin, abundance of mycosis displayed that there was a lack of personal care among the participants. Abundance of waist and backaches displayed the need of working in open areas and heavy work conditions. Other parameters for both groups were introduced in tables 1 and 2 .

Table 1: Average values of age, height, weight, BMI, time for being away from family, work experience, daily sleeping period, and number of dependants for experimental and control group participants.

DISCUSSION

Accidents are defined as unplanned occurrences, which results in injuries fatalities, loss of production or damage to property and assets (18). Preventing accidents is extremely difficult in the absence of an understanding of causes of accidents. Many attempts have been made to develop a prediction theory of accidents causation, but so far none has been universally accepted. Researchers from different fields of science and engineering have been trying to develop a theory of accidents causation which will help to identify, isolate and ultimately remove the factors that contribute to or cause accidents (1).

Construction, as a work branch, is at the first place in number of workers and industrial accidents, not only in our country but also in the world. 15% of industrial accidents, which do not end up with death and 30% of industrial accidents, which end up with death, take place in construction sector of our country. Besides damaging individual’s life, industrial accidents make a significant financial damage to firms and national economy.

Evaluation of statistics about industrial accidents in Turkey displays that during the last fifteen-year period there is a continuous decrease in the number of industrial accidents. But this decrease is not the same for the rate of death caused by industrial accidents. Death rate due to industrial accidents stays high because there is no improvement in transport, coal mining and construction sectors (16). Injured workers take medical treatment in the infirmary of the construction yard and go on work after a small break. Therefore, those injured workers are only registered to infirmary; they are not registered to Social Insurance Institution. Slight industrial accidents take an important place in making plans for precautions.

Research data gathered from different work branches display a significant relationship between having an accident, work experience and BMI. Personal risk factors for injury occurrence at farm work-related injuries were age (and/or experience), previous injury status, body mass index, hours of sleep, a variable measuring daytime drowsiness and a variable measuring perceived stress. (8)

Certain factors associated with "accident proneness", however, are stable and general: personality and sex. Some are prone to changing slowly during one's lifetime: age and experience(11).

Obese people have more industrial accidents than others. Data from this research display no difference between experimental and control groups due to factors like personal characteristics, age, BMI, work experience, daily sleeping time, number of dependants, time for being away from family.

Average Benton Perception and Attention Memory Test scores of those who had an industrial accident were low. The difference between two groups was statistically significant. Average scores for neurotism sub-dimension of EPQ of those who had industrial accident were high. The difference between those who had an accident and those who had not was statistically significant. These research data are similar to Spor’s research on metal work branch (12). Therefore, lacks of attention and neurotic personality are important factors in having industrial accidents.

In general, research studies related to different work branches, imply that workers have low attention and perception. Safety precautions protect workers from heavy industrial accidents, which may end up with death. Among the other test scores, no significant difference was found for the two groups’ average scores on BSI sub-dimensions; anxiety, depression, negative egoism, somatisation, and hostility. Individual’s emotional situation is an important factor in having an accident.

Short tiredness inquiry results imply that those who had an accident had high scores for 24-hour tiredness and 24-hour worse tiredness. Differences between groups were statistically significant. In addition to regular daily work, 3-hour additional work makes individuals have high tiredness scores in both groups. Construction is a heavy work branch; therefore, 11-hour work causes a decrease in individuals’ activities and then causes to have an accident. According to the Nushtaev’s study the most frequent causes of traumatism, are psychophysiologic peculiarities of the victims and work conditions resulting in fatigue (8)

In high effort demanding work branches, like construction, working periods must be kept short or there must be shifts for a workday. This is an important factor to decrease the rate of having accidents.

Industrial accidents evaluated in this research were not the ones caused defectiveness but those in which workers were slightly wounded. Even if unsafe conditions are removed from the work place, it is impossible to prevent industrial accidents based on personal factors. Work entrance examinations are very important in entering heavy and dangerous work branches. Basic principle of industrial health is to make work fit workers and make workers fit work.

In health education of the workers, there needs to be co-operation with the hygienist of the work place to let workers know personal and machine protectors. There needs to be co-operation with the sociologist and psychologist of the work place for removing emotional and social problems of workers as well as to motivate them.

At the work entrance, individuals’ diabetics, cardiologic diseases, hyper blood pressure, and epilepsy need to be determined and those who have these problems must be kept away from high-risk areas. Additionally, individuals’ attentions, reaction time, addictions, like smoking and drinking must also be determined to employ them in low-risk areas.

It is possible to decrease the rate of industrial accidents by taking precautions for unsafe conditions and unsafe attitudes at the same time.

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