Abstract:
Background: Throughout the world, occupational exposure in small and medium
scale industries continue to cause serious public health problems and are leading cause
of disability and disease among workers. Since there has not been any study on the
prevalence and contributing factors of occupational injury in small and medium scale
industries
Objective: To assess the prevalence and contributing factors of work-related injury
among small and medium scale industries workers in Sebeta Town.
Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted on 935
small and medium scale industrial workers from May to June,2019. Multi-stage sam-
pling technique was used to selected the study participants. A pretested and structured
questionnaire was used to obtain information on the occurrence of injuries and allied
factors. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was carried out to ascertain the association
between dependent and independent variables. Adjusted odds ratio with 95%CI and
p-value less than 0.05 were used to declare the associated factors
Results: The overall annual prevalence rate of work-related injury was 36.1% work-
ers per year, with 37.1% and 35.7% workers among small and medium scale indus-
tries, respectively. The prevalence and severity of annual rate was not associated with
the scale type of industries. Younger age between 15-23 years (AOR: 3.3; 95% Cl:
2.12, 4.99), working more than 48 hours per week (AOR: 3.70; 95% Cl: 2.47, 5.54),
sleeping disorder (AOR: 5.37; 95% Cl: 3.47, 8.31), job dissatisfaction (AOR: 3.82;
95% Cl: 2.33, 6.25), married (AOR: 3.26; 95%Cl: 2.12, 4.99), not use of personal
protective equipment (AOR:13.9; 95% Cl: 7.94; 21.6) were found to be significantly
associated factors to work related injuries. Adjusted odds ratio with 95%CI and p-
value less than 0.05 were used to declare the associated factors.
Conclusion: The burdens of work-related injury in both small and medium scale in-
dustries workers are significantly high. Emphasis should be given to the provision of
health and safety information, training and prevention should focus on young age
workers, workers work more than 48 hours per week, and should assess workers sat-
isfaction.
