Preventive behaviors from dust among workers in lime factories and stone crushing mills, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

A descriptive research with the objective to study the preventive behavior from dust and relating factors among the workers in the lime factories and stone crushing mills in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. A sample group of 198 workers in the lime factories and stone crushing mills and 13 operators of the said factories and mills, altogether 211 persons, were used in this research. Data collection tools were the questionnaires, interviewing schedule and observation forms. The information was analyzed for the relationship between the factors and the preventive behavior of workers in the lime factories and stone crushing mills through Chi-square analysis.The study found that the majority of the respondents (50.5%) had dust preventive behavior at the low level, having perceived susceptibility of the diseases as the result of dust at high level (51.5%), perceived severity at medium level (60.6%), and the perceived benefit and barriers of performing at high level (58.1%). Socio-demographic factors such as family income, period of time to work, job characteristic and sickness were related to the preventive behavior from dust among workers with statistical significance of p<0.05. The factors on the health belief which were the perceived severity and the perceived benefit and barriers of performing were related to the preventive behavior from dust among workers with statistical significance of p<0.01 and 0.001 respectively. The perceived susceptibility of the diseases as the result of dust had no relationship with the preventive behavior from dust among workers. Most of lime factories did not have supportive environments or health policy. The stone crushing mills had supportive environments and health policy but did not have health reports regarding annual physical examination of workers. Suggestions from the research results were the need for cooperation of the public health officials to develop the knowledge about and the importance of health promotion and prevention for the factory owners and workers, and emphasizing on the use of the protective devices, setting the arrangements for annual health examinations of workers by health personnel, and establishing the system of health reports of workers by the factory owners. The factory operators should initiate the health promotion project for workers, including the implementation of the health policies for workers, and making the protective devices available for workers