Health literacy and organizational citizenship levels of employees in the jewelery industry

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Occupational health and safety (OHS) application principles are important for all employees and employers. Determining and increasing the health literacy levels of employees is important for the proper implementation of OHS principles. Organizational citizenship behavior is the whole of the behaviors that people do voluntarily in workplaces and institutions and reflect their sense of belonging to the organization. We aimed to determine the health literacy and organizational citizenship levels of jewelery industry employees, because there is no previous study on this subject. METHOD: This descriptive and cross-sectional study included 250 people with the technique of responding under observation, all working a company located in Istanbul Bahçelievler district and producing for the jewelery sector. Data were collected with a personal information form, a health literacy scale for employees consisting of 29 questions, and an organizational citizenship scale consisting of 24 questions. A total of 33 participants were excluded from the study for various reasons, and the data of 217 individuals were analyzed. In addition to descriptive and comparative analyzes, correlation analyzes were also performed. The SPSS package program version 28.0 licensed from Istanbul University was used for all analyses, and a a value of 0.05 was considered significant for the p value. RESULTS: A total of 217 participants were included in the study, the mean age was 29.93±8.92 years, 80.6% were male, 58.4% were single. 57.6% of those working in the jewelry industry have an 'excellent occupational health literacy' level. The average of health literacy scale scores for employees of all our participants was 122 points, at the level of excellent occupational health literacy'. The average score of the employees in the jewelry sector from the organizational citizenship scale was determined as 130. In this scale, where a maximum of 168 points can be obtained, 130 points received by the participants were evaluated as above the average. It was determined that the scores obtained from all sub-dimensions of the health literacy scale for employees were at a very good level, and the scores obtained from the sub-dimensions of the organizational citizenship scale were above the average in all sub-dimensions except the 'tolerance sub-scale'. Older age, male gender, being married, higher education level and longer working time were determined as factors that significantly affect occupational health literacy. All these factors also significantly affect organizational citizenship levels. In addition, negative situations such as experiencing musculoskeletal pain in the workplace negatively affect the scores obtained from the organizational citizenship scale and especially from the 'tolerance' sub-dimension. In addition, a significant and positive correlation was found between the health literacy scale and organizational citizenship scale total scores and all sub-dimension scores for employees. As the level of health literacy increases, organizational citizenship behavior also increases. CONCLUSION: People working in the jewelry industry have 'excellent occupational health literacy' and above-average organizational citizenship behavior. As health literacy increases, organizational citizenship levels increase along with the occupational health and safety practice principles that are expected to be better complied with. Participants can attribute the negative situations they experience in the workplace to their work, which negatively affects their sense of organizational citizenship. Implementation and supervision of occupational health safety principles in all workplaces for all employees will increase both health literacy levels and organizational citizenship levels, and as a result of all this, the performance and productivity of organizations and employees will increase. KEYWORDS: Occupational health and safety, Jewelry, Health literacy, Organizational Citizenship