Determinants of Occupational Injury among Building Construction Employees in Southeastern Ethiopia

Introduction: An occupational injury is the primary cause of workplace absenteeism, disability, retirement, mutilation, and mortality. Therefore, injuries in the workplace pose major public health and developmental problems especially in developing countries. Therefore, the present study identified the prevalence of injury and its determinants among building construction employees in Robe town, Ethiopia.

Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among building construction employees in Robe town from March 01-25/2017. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. The data was entered into EPiData 3.1and analysed by using SPSS version 20 software. Face to face interview was conducted on 402 respondents using structured and pretested questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the effect of explanatory variables on injuries.

Results: The overall prevalence of injury among building construction employees was 39.2% [95 % CI: (34.4, 44.2)] in the past one year. The three leading causes of injuries were falls from the same level (38.5%), followed by injuries caused by movable or falling object (23.1%), and falls from elevation (13.4%). Being male, use of personal protective equipment, health and safety training, regular supervision and job satisfaction were factors significantly associated with injury.

Conclusion: This study reported a relatively higher prevalence of injury among building construction workers compared to other studies. Factors such as being male, working without using personal protective equipment, absence of health and safety trainings, lack of regular supervision and job dissatisfaction were associated with significantly higher levels of occupational injury among construction workers. Therefore, employers should focus on providing safety training, promoting use of personal protective equipment during work, regular workplace supervision, and satisfying their employees by creating good work environments and working situations to reduce the rate of occupational injury.