DETERMINANTS OF SAFETY PRACTICES IN FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the determinants of safety practices among workers of food processing industries in Rivers State. The research design adopted for this study was a descriptive survey research design with a population consisting of 15,500 workers in food processing industries in Rivers State. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select a sample size of 950. The instrument for data collection in this study was a structured questionnaire titled, ‘Questionnaire on determinants of occupational hazards and safety practices (QDSP)’ with a reliability coefficient of 0.95. Data analysis was done with the aid of the statistical product for service solution (SPSS) version 23.0 using simple regression at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of this study showed that there was a very high relationship between safety practices and other variables such as attitude towards safety (r = 0.95, R2 = 0.92, p<0.05), availability of safety materials (r = 0.84, R2 = 0.71, p<0.05), years of work experience (r = 0.92, R2 = 0.85, p<0.05), and training (r = 0.93, R2 = 0.87, p<0.05). It was concluded that the determinants of safety practices included attitude towards safety, availability of safety materials, training and job specification. It was recommended among others that, the managers in the food processing industries should ensure adequate procurement of safety equipment to avoid any lapses in safety practices brought about due to unavailability of safety materials