Testing Occupational Hazard Self-Evaluation Module (OHSEM) Intervention among Workers of SME (Manufacturing) in Northern Malaysia

@#Introduction: Workplace accidents have been a persistent problem in Malaysia’s manufacturing industry, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Employee behavior has been identified as a significant contributing factor to these accidents, and research has suggested that improving safety knowledge and attitudes can enhance safety behavior. Despite this, there have been no empirical intervention studies in Malaysia to investigate the effectiveness of safety intervention programs aimed at improving SME worker safety behavior. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the efficacy of the Occupational Hazard Self-Evaluation Module (OHSEM) intervention in enhancing safety knowledge, attitudes, and behavior (KAB) among SME workers in the manufacturing sector. Methods: A quasi-experimental design with control group was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the OHSEM intervention. The intervention was implemented over a 12-week period on production workers in the experimental group, while the control group received no intervention. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 88 production workers in both groups before and after the intervention to measure the improvement of safety KAB. Descriptive analysis and an independent t-test were used to analyse the data. Results: The post-test results showed that safety KAB for the control group was moderate (mean = 2.11), while the mean score in the experimental group was high (m=4.17). Furthermore, the t-test result revealed a significant difference in safety KAB mean scores between the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: This study provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the OHSEM intervention in enhancing safety KAB in SMEs in the Malaysian SME (manufacturing) sector.

Development of Mobile Application in Assessing Commuting Accident Risk (CommuRisk) Amongst Commuters at Klang Valley

@#Introduction: Globally, commuting accident risks are always neglected in an organisation. There is a need to assess the impact of commuting accidents based on sociodemographic, human, vehicle, road, and environmental factors and to find suitable and effective mitigation strategies to alleviate the associated undesirable outcomes. Methods: This research was designed to develop a mobile application to assess commuting accident risk levels using artificial intelligence principles, as we are now in the 21st-century technology era. A total of 216 respondents from private and government industries participated in this study. Besides, to prove the developed application’s effectiveness, the study evaluated the effectiveness of the identified risk factor in determining the level of commuting risks predicted by respondents with the risk level calculated by the mobile application. Results: A major contribution of this paper is the effectiveness and accuracy of a mobile application known as CommuRisk. The app was developed using Android Studio and natively uses Java. There was a significant difference between with and without mobile applications in determining the level of commuting risks, and the effectiveness was proven with a (p-value = 0.001) at a 95% confidence interval with large sample size. Conclusion: Thus, this paper proved the effectiveness and accuracy of a mobile application in calculating risk levels exposed by commuters compared to risk levels predicted by commuters.

Systematic Review of Intervention Programs to Improve the Level of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices towards Work Safety Culture among Office Workers

@#Introduction: Workplace safety culture (WSC) is crucial in providing a safe working environment. Workers need to be reminded regularly of its importance, and therefore effectively, work safety intervention programs need to be identified to be used for this purpose. The main objective is to identify workplace intervention programs to improve WSC among office workers. The specific goals are to determine the types of intervention (knowledge-based, attitudinal, and practices-based interventions), the theories used, and the effectiveness. Methods: Databases such as ProQuest, CINAHL, Medline, and ScienceDirect were used to perform literature searches with the keywords [“safety culture training” OR “safety culture education” OR “safety culture promotion”] AND [“office workers” OR “civil servant” OR “white-collar workers” OR “administrative officers” OR “clerical officer”]. The inclusion criteria set for the search process included research articles, publication between January 1, 2015, and September 10, 2020, which were research articles within five years and eight months of publication to the time of data extraction of this study. Availability of full-text articles, articles published in English, and only articles among office workers. Results: This review includes seven articles and the techniques used for these studies were knowledge, attitude, and practices towards WSC. Conclusion: As the number and scope of intervention of studies on WSC seem scarce, the nature of jobs nowadays and in the future seems to be more office-based; consequently, more of these studies are recommended among office workers.