Modelling Safety Behaviour from Safety Climate among Healthcare Workers in Benin City

Abstract

It is counter-intuitive that the healthcare industry, whose mission is the care of the sick, is itself a “high-hazard” industry for the workers it employs. Injuries at the workplace are related to unsafe work behaviour and unsafe work procedures. This research work concerns modelling safety behaviour from safety climate among healthcare workers in Benin city. The model incorporates safety climate constructs as independent variables and safety behaviour as the dependent variable. A questionnaire survey obtained 277 responses from multiple healthcare facilities in Benin City. A purposive/judgmental sampling approach was adopted to get respondents that fit the study. Multiple regression analysis was appropriate in building the model. 10 variables were originally collated but only 7 variables with factor loadings greater than 0.6 were retained after principal component analysis, and only 5 variables were statistically significant for the model development. The beta coefficients were used to study the impact of each construct on the safety behaviour of employees. As a result, safety climate constructs like management commitment, supervisory environment, workers’ involvement, personal appreciation of risk, and supportive environment, were substantially correlated with the safety behaviour of employees with 15.13, -10.309, 5.647, 1.649, -12.288 beta coefficients respectively. The overall R2 determination coefficient was 0.897 which depicts the model explains 89.7% of the variance in safety behaviour. This model has enormous potential to inspire healthcare management to facilitate safety behaviour and to successfully monitor the safety of healthcare sector workers. This research reveals that slips, trips, falls, needle prick injuries, cross-contamination, infections and diseases, mental stress, exposure to x-ray radiation, direct contact with contaminated specimen, musculoskeletal disorder as the most recurring accidents/near misses experienced as a result of unsafe behaviour of healthcare workers in their organizations. This research also reveals unsafe behaviours such as improper use of PPE, no use of PPE, taking shortcuts, verbal abuse, unsafe injection practice, working long hours, negligence and carelessness as some of the unsafe behaviours of healthcare workers in their organizations. Findings from this research reveals shortage of staff, fines and associated legal fees, retraining of new staff as some of the cost and consequences of unsafe work behaviour by healthcare workers to their organizations. Management should concentrate on more significant constructs to achieve the optimal and successful safety performance of healthcare workers.