Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Employees of Car Refinishing and Painting Workshops in Yazd about Harmful Effects of Heavy Metal on Their health, 2019

Heavy metals in chemical paints pollute the environment, including the refineries and painting workshops air, and can damage the workerschr('39') health. The level of knowledge and information of the workers in painting workshops with the harms of heavy metals is effective in improving their safety. The present study  investigated the knowledge, attitude and practice of activists working in the refining and painting workshop about the damages of heavy metals on their health in Yazd city.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 40 workers in the refining and painting workshop in Yazd city. Demographic information, knowledge, attitude and practice of individuals were collected with a 37-item questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by Kolmogorov Smirnov and Spearman tests with SPSS ver 20 statistical software.

The mean age of the considering subjects was 41.8 ± 10.43 years, which nearly 90% of the participants in the study had under university education. The mean scores of knowledge, attitude and practice of the participants were 1.59 ± 0.38, 2.57 ± 0.41 and 1.89 ± 0.34, respectively. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between age and education with the variables of knowledge and attitude (p> 0.05) but There was (p <0.05) a significant and positive correlation between the variables of age (r = 0.555) and work experience (r = 0.542) with the performance of employees, also the familiarity degree of painters with the harms of heavy metals on their health was low.

Due to the adverse effects of heavy metals on human health and the low level of awareness, attitude and practice of workers in painting workshops, It is recommended to maintain the workerschr('39') health, increase their awareness about the presence of heavy metals, storage these metals in body tissue, and knowledge of their performance to use the personal protective equipment during painting.