Proposing a Customized Model of Safety Culture and Behavior in a Car Manufacturing Company

Work-related accidents and illnesses are a great concern in developed countries. Numerous researches have been performed to find an appropriate approach to decrease occupational accidents. This descriptive-analytical study was designed based on the retrospective and field studies to develop a customized model of the safety culture and identify the effective factors of safety culture in a car manufacturing company. In order to present a new customized model of safety culture questionnaire, the study was designed in three phases: 1) Proposing a customized model, 2) Constructing a validated questionnaire, and 3) Conducting a field study. A total number of 619 cases completed the questionnaire (321 injured and 298 uninjured people). Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was 0.855. The injured population noticeably acquired more points than the uninjured workers in all items of the questionnaire except for "safety rules and regulations"; though, this difference was statistically significant (P<0.05) only in the 7 items. The correlation between almost all of the safety culture components in the injured and uninjured workers was positive (P<0.05 P <0.001). Developing a customized model and questionnaire for a car manufacturing industry is an important finding of the present study. The results showed that the safety culture of the injured subjects was higher than those uninjured. Therefore, it can be stated that the occupational accident is the milestone for the evaluation of the safety culture.