Personal protective eyewear usage among industrial workers in small-scale enterprises
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Personal protective eyewear usage among industrial workers in small-scale enterprises Tahra AlMahmoud1,2*, Ismail Elkonaisi3, Michal Grivna3 and Fikri M. Abu-Zidan1
Abstract Background: Work-related eye injury causes significant vision loss. Most of these injuries are preventable with appropriate eye safety practices. We aimed to study industrial workers’ perceptions of Personal Protective Eyewear (PPE) and its usage in a high income developing country. Methods: A field-based cross-sectional study in small-scale industrial entities was performed in Al-Ain City, UAE during the period of October 2018 to June 2019. Five hundred workers completed a pretested structured questionnaire. Data on demographics, occupational history, work hazard awareness, and PPE usage at their work place were collected. Results: The workers were experienced, with a median of 15 years in practice. The majority (80%) learned their work skills through apprenticeship (i.e., on-the-job) training. Most (85%) were involved with activities presenting eye injury risk, and were highly aware of this. None of the workers used safety goggles or glasses all the time for activities that need PPE usage. Five percent never used PPE in the workplace. The main reason for not using PPE was the work demands (95%) and poor vision through the lenses (75%). Young age and less work experience were associated with less PPE usage (P < 0.0001). Wearing prescription spectacles had a positive correlation with usage of safety goggles (P = 0.005) and a negative correlation with welding helmet usage (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: There was a high level of awareness about the value of PPE in the workplace which was not translated into real practice. Educational programs promoting eye safety practices and proper PPE usage should be adopted by workers in small-scale industrial settings. Keywords: Eye injuries, Perception, Personal protective eyewear
Introduction Ocular injury is a common cause of blindness worldwide (Pizzarello 1998; Lombardi et al. 2005; Fea et al. 2008). Around 60% of these injuries occur in the workplace (AlMahmoud et al. 2019a; Fea et al. 2008). Personal Protective Eyewear (PPE) is highly effective in preventing eye injury if appropriate selections are made available * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Surgery, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Khalifa Bin Zayed Street, P.O. Box: 17666, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates 2 Zayed Center for Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, UAE Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
and effectively used (Lipscomb 2000; Mancini et al. 2005; Forst et al. 2006; Zgambo 2015). About 60% of work-related eye injury is related either to the lack of usage or to the wrong choice of PPE at the time of injury (Lombardi et al. 2009). Over the past two decades, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has dramatically increased construction and manufacturing activities that rely on welders and carpenters.
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