The Effect of the Safety Interventions Based on Behavior Using the Development of a Safety Education System and Reward - Punishment Procedure on Reducing Unsafe Behaviors



Mousavi SM¹ ; Yazdanirad S² ; Shabgard Z³ ; Moradirad R⁴ ; Nezhad BB⁵
Source: Iran Occupational Health Published:2020

Abstract

Background and aims: Given the complexity and unpredictability of human beings, the control of their behavior is difficult. However, it is possible to reduce many of these behaviors through accurate planning and well-documented training. One of the important ways to change people's behavior is through the use of educational interventions. Several studies have been performed on the use of an educational intervention for improving employee's behavior in different industries and occupations. Another way for behavior correction is the use of the rewards and punishment system. Rewards mean applying a training strategy that is used to create, correct or stabilizes behavior and encouraging action for its repetition. However, the studies have not yet examined the simultaneous effect of two strategies of the educational intervention and the encouragement and punishment system for reducing unsafe behavior. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects of educational interventions and the implementation of a reward and punishment system on reducing the unsafe behaviors among workers of the Mapna plant of Kashan. Methods: The present interventional study was carried out on 115 workers of the Mapna plant of Kashan in 2017. Inclusion criteria included having work experience higher than one year in Mapna company. Also, an exclusion criterion was the changed behavior due to the presence of researchers. The sampling method was the classified random. First, a preliminary evaluation was performed to recognize the jobs and processes in the company. In the present study, unsafe behaviors are defined as actions outside of the standard limits determined in the system. For this reason, a list of unsafe behavior was provided by observations and literature review, including a list of unsafe practices of American National Standards Institute (ANSI), type and nature of work, rules and instructions for performing work, and reports of accidents and semi-accidents in a company. Then, a checklist was designed based on this list. Also, for evaluating the unsafe behaviors of the workers, the sampling safety behaviors (SSB) technique was used for three months. In this technique, all the behavior of workers while performing the task is imperceptibly observed and information about their behavior is recorded by the designed checklist. For this purpose, all data were collected by researchers in the morning shift from 8 am to 6 pm. The number of observations per person was 80, which was randomly done during the individual work shift. In this study, the time of each observation was between 3 and 5 seconds. Then, the educational intervention and the system of the rewards and punishment were simultaneously implemented for six months. At final, a secondary assessment of the unsafe behavior was conducted for three months. The data related to the behavior assessment of the workers before and after performing the interventions were entered into SPSS software version 20 and were analyzed. Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test was used to evaluate the normality of the study variables. The results of this test showed that the data distribution was not normal (p <0.05). Therefore, Wilcoxon statistical test was applied to examine the relationships among variables. The significance level was equal to 0.05. Results: The mean and standard deviation values of the age were 37.56 and 9.8 years old, respectively. Also, the mean and standard deviation values of the work experience were 12.22 and 9.6, respectively. In this study, 48.7% of the studied subjects had a diploma degree and 85.2% of them were married. The results showed that the highest and lowest numbers of the observations were related to the occupational groups of the cutting and assembling with 1040 and 480 cases, respectively. The total number of obtained unsafe behavior observations was equal to 2405. The results also indicated that 478 (45.96%) cutters and 276 (33.38%) scaffolders had the most cases of unsafe behaviors, respectively. Before the training interventions and implementation of the rewards and punishment system, some unsafe behaviors of cutters included non-use of personal protective equipment and the use of inappropriate personal protective equipment. The least number of unsafe behaviors was observed in the mold workers (15.46%). Based on the results, cutters with 226 (21.72%), loader operators with 98 (12.25%), and mini loader operators with 91 cases (11.37%) had the most numbers of unsafe behaviors after educational interventions and implementation of the rewards and punishment system. The lowest number of unsafe behaviors were observed in the mold workers with 30 (4.68%) and excavator operators with 50 cases (8.92%), respectively. The results also revealed that mini-loader operators with 55.48%, steel frame installers with 55.45%, and paint workers with 55.14% had most decreases of the unsafe behavior after educational interventions and implementation of rewards and punishment systems. Based on the results, mold workers with 30.3% and scaffolding workers with 30.43% had the least decrease in unsafe behaviors. However, the results showed that the rate of unsafe behaviors has decreased in all occupations after interventions. Based on the results, the relative frequencies of the unsafe behaviors before and after interventions were 24.82 and 10.99 percent, respectively. Wilcoxon test showed that there were significant relationships between the safety training and reward and punishment systems with the reduced unsafe behaviors in employees of different occupations (p=0.041). The results also indicated that there was a significant inverse relationship between work experience and unsafe behaviors before and after interventions (p<0.001). Conclusion: Results indicated that the intended interventions were effective in reducing unsafe behaviors. Therefore, these interventions can be used to reduce unsafe behaviors in various industries. Given that unsafe behaviors are one of the main causes of accidents, it is recommended that comprehensive programs are considered for implementing and repeating the specialized training courses based on the safety needs of each job. Also, the reward and punishment system can be used to motivate workers for implementing safe behaviors. One of the limitations of the present study was the lack of investigation of independent effects related to two techniques of the educational intervention and the rewards and punishment system, which can be examined in future studies. © 2020 Iran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.