Effects of Stress on Occupational Injuries among the Workers at Automobile Body Parts Industry in Chonburi Province

บทคัดย่อ

This study aimed to measure the effect of stress on occupational injuries among automobile body parts industrial workers by controlling extraneous variables such as sex, age personality, department, and physical working conditions. The subjects comprised 130 cases and 130 controls. Cases were the workers who had injuries during the study period (February to April 2009). Controls were the workers with no injury during and prior to the study period for 2 months. The controls were recruited and matched with cases by sex, age (not more than 5 years difference), and department. Data were collected by interview. The reliability of the instrument for personality was 0.707 and for stress was 0.909 (Cronbach’s alpha). Data were described by numbers, percentages, averages and standard deviation and analyzed for association by Odds ratio (95%CI), chi-square test, and multiple logistic regressions.

This study found that 1) among 130 cases, the average of injuries during the study period was 2 times higher. The major cause of injury was struck by the object (46.2%). Most of injured organs were hand and fingers (38.5%). Most injuries were mild lacerated wounds (36.9%). After first aid at nursing unit they could go back to continue working (86.2%). 2) Most of the cases had high stress level (33.8%) but most of the controls had moderate stress level (36.2%). It was found that stress was a risk factor to injury with Crude Odds Ratio (OR_c) = 3.78 (95%CI=1.56, 9.15) and Adjusted Odds Ratio (OR_a) = 3.86 (95%CI=1.58, 9.42) respectively.

The study indicated that stress was an important risk factor of occupational injury. Therefore, administrators and safety officers should find out the causes of stress and develop activities to relief stress among workers to decrease occupational injury.