Determination of socio-demographical characteristics and general health conditions of workers under the age of 18 in Akdeniz industrial sector, Antalya, Turkey

Child labor is a major problem for both developed and developing countries. It is well known that child workers are experiencing many health problems and investigating these problems provides necessary information to generate effective solutions. The purpose of this study is to determine the general health conditions of workers under the age of 18 in two medium sized industrial sites located in different districts of Antalya and the workers who are being trained in an Occupational Training Center, Antalya, Turkey. The data were collected between December 2013-February 2014 with a standard survey by face-to-face interviews. It is a cross-sectional study where entire population was aimed without any sampling. Participation rate in industrial site was 84.7% and in training center was 99.5%. Survey included questions regarding personal and socio-demographical characteristics, working conditions, habits and substance use. Moreover, the survey has covered standard scales regarding participants' self esteem, general health conditions and coping with stress behaviors. Ethical committee approval and verbal informed consent from each participant were ensured. Findings were represented with descriptive and analytical tables and logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate possible associations among study variables. Among all participants, youngest age to start working was six. Percentage of workers who were unsatisfied with their work place was 33.2% while mean employment time was 10,9±1,6 hours/day. Incidences of being a victim of violent behavior were; 40.7% for verbal violence, 29.0% for physical violence and 5.1% for sexual violence. Overall, percentage of experiencing any types of the violent behavior was 49.1%. Smoking rate was 48.8% while alcohol consumption rate was 21.2%. A total of 6.4% of the participants reported substance use. Percentage of poor perceived health was 27.9% and low self-esteem was 7.4%. Mean level of coping with stress scale score was 48.86±11.16. Work place satisfaction was found to be high in workers who did not experience violent behavior, are working for learning the profession and has high self-esteem. The findings underline low job satisfaction, high exposure to violence, extensive smoking, alcohol and substance use, low self-esteem, worse perceived and psychological health among the workers of targeted age group