Effects of Psychological and Physical Factors and Morning-Evening Type on Occupational Accidents among the Workers of Porcelain Industry in Iran: Structural Equation Modeling

Nowadays, occupational accidents associated with severe harms for people and heavy economic and social loss are counted among the serious complications of the societies. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between stress, anxiety, fatigue, workload, morning-evening type, and occupational accidents among the workers of the porcelain industry in 2017 in Iran.

This cross-sectional study with a descriptive-analytical approach was performed in one of the porcelain factories of Iran. The samples were selected through simple random sampling method out of the study population consisting of 205 rotating- and day-shift workers and day-working individuals of the factory workforce. The study instruments included a researcher-made demographic questionnaire (for age, work experience, gender, marital status, work shift, and the number of accidents), Checklist Individual Strength (CIS) for assessing people fatigue, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Morningness-Eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) developed by Horne and Ostberg. All the data were analyzed by Chi-square, Mann-Whitney, t-test, and structural equation using LISREL and SPSS software version 20.    

Our results showed that 62.2% and 3.8% of the workers were male and female, respectively. The mean and standard deviation of the age of the participants was 32.27±6.17 years. The mean work experience of the individuals was found to be 6.44±4.49 years. According to the findings of this study, 56.7% and 50.9% of the 108 people who had sleep apnea were rotating- and day-shift workers, respectively. The mean score of MEQ among all the participants was revealed as 45.15±4.94, which is categorized as intermediate. The personal ability score was obtained as 64.23±14.4 in day-shift people and 61.12±10.66 in rotating-shift individuals. Workload, stress, and sleeplessness were diagnosed as the factors of fatigue among all the workers (P<0.05).

According to the results of the present investigation, sleepiness, high workload, and stress are prevalent among the workforce of the porcelain industry. The mentioned factors significantly lead to fatigue. However, sleepiness was found to be significantly correlated with fatigue in people working a rotating shift