Accident proneness: is it merely a psychological problem?

ABSTRACT

The present study is conducted to prove or disprove the presence of an accident-prone person and to define the possible contributing factors. 26 workers, in 3 large-scale plants, were found to have experienced two or more accidents in the last 2 years. Those workers, in addition to 26 control subjects were subjected to a questionnaire inquiring about the personal, socioeconomic and vocational data. They were also subjected to Eysench Personality Questionnaire [EPQ] measuring 3 basic personality traits, extroversion/introversion, psychocitism, sociability and neurocitism/emotional stability. Memory was also evaluated by digit span, psychomotor ability by H-mark ad dotting tests, verbal and structural intelligence by similarity tests adopted by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology [NIIP] and perception by tool matching test. Significant differences were found between the accident-prone and the control subjects, concerning medical disorders, personality traits, intelligence, perception and psychomotor speed, but not memory span