Knowledge, attitude and practice among petroleum industry employees and employers' preparedness towards occupational safety and health

Abstract

Introduction: The stabilization of Malaysian economy is mostly depending on industrial sector. Petroleum or oil and gas industry are the important industrial sectors that comprises of three sub-sectors namely natural gas, petroleum and petrochemicals products. The safety in the workplace is a vital issue that need to be taken seriously since the employees in petroleum industry are exposed to various type of health hazards, accidents and injuries. The occupational health practice among employers and employees in the industry is very important to prevent and control the occurrence of occupational illness especially by applying the policies and procedures to control the hazards from occurring. To date, there has no study to identify and assess the preparedness towards occupational health among the petroleum industry employees in Malaysia. General objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the level of knowledge, attitude and practice on occupational safety and health among the industry’s employees and to determine the preparedness in managing health hazards among the employers at Teluk Kalung Petroleum Industrial Area, Kemaman, Terengganu. Methodology: There were two sampling types in this cross-sectional study which were a convenience sampling that has been conducted among the petroleum industry employees followed by a purposive sampling method used to collect data from the employers. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socio-demographics of respondents and the levels of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP). Chi-square test was used to test the association between socio-demographic data with level of KAP, level of knowledge with level of attitude, level of knowledge with level of practice and level of attitude with level of practice using SPSS. Additionally, the employers had been asked regarding the practices and preventive measures to maintain and promote the health and safety of their employees based on the available questionnaire. Result: For KAP study of employees, the result stated that there were significant association between level of practice with designation (p=0.001) and working experiences (p=0.048). This study found that there was significant association between level of knowledge with level of attitude (p=0.002). For employers, all of the respondents 100% have prepared in managing occupational health hazards. Majority of the respondents were generally had shown their preparedness in providing the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to their employees (95%, 19/20). There were 55% (11/20) of the employers estimated that there were accidents occurred at the workplace. For about 45% (9/20) of the employers estimated that there were no accidents occur at the workplace in a year. Conclusion: The knowledge level had affected the attitude level of the employees. Training on occupational safety and health should be held to improve the employee’s knowledge and attitude. While the number of estimated accidents had been decreased from time to time showed that the employers had taken prepared to ensure the occupational injury and illness improved.