Abstract:

A study to assess the knowledge and self reported practices regarding occupational health hazards among the class-d workers at selected hospitals of sangli miraj kupwad corporation area in a view to develop self instructional module. Objectives: To assess the knowledge regarding occupational health hazards. To assess the self-reported practices regarding occupational health hazards. To Co-relate knowledge with self-reported practices regarding occupational health hazards. To develop self-instructional module. Material and methods:             A non-experimental descriptive study was conducted to assess the knowledge and self reported practices regarding occupational health hazards among the class d workers working at selected hospitals of sangli miraj kupwad corporation area (Maharashtra). Total 110 samples were selected by simple random sampling method. A structured knowledge questionnaire of 30 items and 1 checklist was administered to collect the data. r value of both the tools was greater than 0.7 and tool was considered as reliable. The conceptual framework based on Nola J Pender. Result: It was found that in knowledge scores, 51 (46.36%) of class-d workers were having poor knowledge, 36 (32.73%) were having average knowledge and 23 (20.91%) had good knowledge regarding occupational health hazards. Also results related to knowledge regarding types of occupational hazards were found majority of class d workers i.e. 57.27% were having poor knowledge regarding chemical and radiation hazards. Therefore it is important to develop self instructional module on this these two aspects. Results regarding self reported practices were found majority of the class d workers were not following the practices i.e. 83.64% of class d workers have not taken hepatitis B vaccine. 87.27% of class d workers are not following proper preventive measures to the exposure of radiation and not using lead jackets before entering radiology room. 78.18% of the class d workers are not following right techniques during lifting heavy objects. 67.27% of the class d workers are not wearing safety shoes while carrying biomedical waste. 53.64% of the class d workers are not informing about needle stick injury to infection control nurse. 61.82% of class d workers are not reporting immediately after every exposure to blood and body fluid. 85.45% of class d workers are not avoiding recapping of the needles and 87.27 of class d workers are not doing their regular health checkups. Which shows that practices among class d workers are inadequate. The correlation of knowledge with practice score was significant. (p value= 0.00) Conclusion The study found that significant amount of class d workers were lacking the knowledge about various occupational hazards and also their practices were inadequate. Therefore they need more effective health education campaign which will help to improve the knowledge as well as practices of class d workers. The study concludes that as knowledge increases the practices also increases.

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