The effect of work availability of hospital laboratory employees on occupational health and safety practices

Today, there are still employers who think that OHS practices are a cost-increasing tool and have no effect on productivity. However, on the contrary, these practices are practices that increase employee productivity, motivation and safety, thus reducing costs, increasing productivity and even quality. Unfortunately, the number of studies conducted in hospital laboratories in our country on OHS, which includes all the positive effects of work, is very limited. In this study, a study was conducted to reveal how the readiness for work of health personnel working in hospital (medical) laboratories affects their perceptions of OHS and safety practices and to reveal the relationship between these two variables. The aim of the study is to examine the effect of the readiness for work of laboratory workers in hospitals on their perceptions of occupational health and safety practices. In our study, which is a descriptive research type, the situation between job readiness and occupational health and safety perceptions in terms of demographic variables such as age, education status, and marital status was statistically revealed. Personal information form, 45-item "Occupational Safety Scale for Healthcare Personnel Working in the Hospital" and 46-item "Work Readiness Scale" were used as data collection tools. Data collected through face-to-face questionnaires, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and variance analysis methods were used in the study. The Cronbach's Alpha values of the scales used in the research are 0.95 and 0.92, respectively, and they are highly reliable. A positive, moderately strong statistically significant relationship was found between the job readiness scale scores and the job safety scale scores (r: 0.304; p: 0.012). This situation explains that health workers with high job readiness have a high perception of occupational health and safety.