Medicina Ocupacional y Asuntos de Salud

Abstracto

A Review of Sir Thomas Legge’s Aphorisms and Workplace Personal Protective Equipments – Is There Gap in Knowledge, Attitude and Utilization?

Emmanuel N Aguwa

Sir Thomas Legge and other researchers have long established the need to protect workers from workplace hazards. Protection of workers from workplace hazards is crucial to reduce mortality and morbidity in the workplace. Many of these morbidity and mortality occur long after the workman has left the work. Hence besides other control measures it becomes important to assess compliance of the employer/employee with personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods: Secondary data were collected from previous literatures involving different occupations in different countries. Results in most studies showed poor knowledge of work hazards/PPE, attitude and utilization of PPEs in most occupations. The commonest reasons for poor utilization of PPEs were discomfort, reduction in work efficiency, emergency nature of work and feeling of low vulnerability of worker to hazard. Conclusion: Besides making appropriate PPEs to be always available, focus should be at attitudinal change of workers to make them and their employers think “safety first”.