Safety Culture Assessment and Determination of its Predictive Demographic and Occupational Variables among Industries of Qom Province, Iran

Safety culture as an indicator of safety performance in organizations has a key role on formation of employee’s safety behavior. Therefore, assessment of the safety culture as well as identification of its related factors can play an important role in reducing accidents in the workplace. This study was implemented to assess the safety culture and determine its related demographic and occupational variables among workers in the various industries of Qom Province, Iran.
This cross-sectional, analytical, descriptive study was conducted on 289 workers in various industries of Qom Province. The data collection tools used consisted of a demographic characteristics form and the Safety Culture Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation test, t-test, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression models in SPSS software.
Findings: The Mean ± SD score of the safety culture was 3.30 ± 0.73. The highest score was obtained in the dimension of cooperation and collaboration (3.53 ± 0.45) and the lowest score was reported in the environmental and safety priority dimension (3.06 ± 0.86). Size of the industry, work history, smoking, and working hours per day had a significant correlation with safety culture, and explained 19.9% of the safety culture variation (P > 0.01).
Due to the correlation between studied variables and safety culture as well as the influence of safety culture on safety performance and accidents, these variables are factors that influence the occurrence of accidents directly or indirectly. Thus, it is necessary that the role of these factors be considered in accident prevention programs and decision making for safety promotion.