The Relationship between Safety Climate Components and Occurrence of Unsafe Behaviors: A Case Study in a Chemical Industry

Many organizational factors can be used as determinants of unsafe behaviors; one of the most prominent is the safety climate. The chemical industry has a great potential for catastrophic accidents due to the critical process parameters and the significant volume of hydrocarbon materials. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the components of occupational safety climate and the occurrence of unsafe behaviors in the chemical industry.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2019 in the petrochemical industry in the south of Iran. In this study, 269 operational personnel were surveyed. To analyze the safety climate, the standard occupational safety climate questionnaire was used. To study the occurrence of unsafe behaviors, a checklist of unsafe behaviors was used according to the causes of accidents that have occurred in the studied industry during the last 15 years. Data analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression in SPSS software version 25.

Significant inverse relationship was observed between the workplace safety dimension and unsafe behavior. There was also a significant relationship between the dimension of management commitment and the experience of accident and near-miss and unsafe behavior (P-Value <0.05). The regression model results showed that the most critical factors affecting the occurrence of unsafe behaviors included the components of management commitment, workplace safety, probability of ignoring the error, education level, and work experience (R2 = 0.559, P-Value <0.05).

The results of the present study showed that the dimension of management commitment, level of workplace safety, level of education, and work experience in chemical industries are among important and influential factors in the occurrence of unsafe behaviors. Therefore, paying attention to these issues can be a practical step towards reducing unsafe behaviors and consequently reducing the accidents in mentioned industries.