Occupational health and safety of employees his approach to protective equipment and individual and organizational factors affecting its use factors: An example of the manufacturing sector

Occupational accidents, occupational diseases, near misses and injuries are frequently experienced in the manufacturing sector. Employees should use personal protective equipment in order not to experience these situations. However, employees do not prefer to use personal protective equipment for some reasons. The factors affecting the use of personal protective equipment vary according to the attitudes of the organizations as well as the perceptions and approaches of the employees. Organizations' practices and attitudes towards occupational health and personal protective equipment play an important role in raising the awareness of employees. The research was carried out with the workers in the manufacturing sector in Bursa. 445 volunteers participated in the survey. In the first part of the questionnaire, the volunteers were asked about their positions in the workplace, their duties, how long they worked, whether they had a work accident or a near-miss event in order to get information about their demographic characteristics. In the second part of the questionnaire, the personal protective equipment awareness scale was used for the volunteers. Finally, yes- no questions were asked whether adequate precautions were taken in the workplace and whether financial support was provided by the organization to the victims of occupational accidents. The survey data were analyzed with the SPSS program. Correlation, anova test and T test analyzes were used to test the research hypotheses. The relationship between the factors themselves was analyzed. The significant difference between the demographic characteristics of the employees and the factors was analyzed.