A study on the relationship between the attitudes and conducts of hospital cleaning employees regarding biological factors and the perception of safety culture: An example of Giresun province

Health sector is one of the high-risk sectors in Turkey in terms of occupational accidents and diseases. One of the risk factors that healthcare professionals encounter most in their workplace is biological factors. Occupational health and safety practices are essential for the prevention of current risks and hazards related to biological factors in healthcare organizations. It is known that measures taken for technical equipment in the field of occupational health and safety are not sufficient to prevent occupational accidents and that personal factors are also effective. It is observed that particularly the unsafe and risky conducts of the employees have an important role in the occurrence of occupational accidents. Occupational accidents can be prevented by changing unsafe conducts, improving the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of employees about safety in a positive way, and creating a cultural awareness. The aim of this study is to determine the safety culture levels of hospital cleaning employees and to reveal the effect of safety culture perception on the knowledge, attitudes and conducts of employees towards biological factors. The study was carried out with the participation of 565 cleaning employees working in 13 health organizations in the centre and districts of the Giresun province affiliated to the public hospitals association. During the data collection phase, Demographic Information Form, Form on Information about Biological Factors, Attitudes and Conducts and Safety Culture Scale were used. It was observed that the attitude and conduct of the management is effective on the employees in ensuring the safety in working environment. It was determined that education was an important factor in creating the safety culture perception. In addition, a statistically significant relationship was found between occupational practices involving risky conducts and the variable of fatalism, and it was seen that the fatalistic approach could increase the risk of occupational accidents. On the other hand, significant relationships were obtained between some demographic variables and safety culture variables. In the end, it was concluded that the safety culture awareness was not sufficiently internalized in the occupational health and safety practices of the hospital cleaning employees for biological factors.